Tertullian

TERTULLIAN

AD NATIONES.

[TRANSLATED BY DR. HOLMES.]

CHAP. I.--THE HATRED FELT BY THE HEATHEN AGAINST THE CHRISTIANS IS UNJUST,
BECAUSE BASED ON CULPABLEIGNORANCE.

ONE proof of that ignorance of yours, which condemns whilst it excuses your
injustice, is at once apparent in the fact, that all who once shared in your
ignorance and hatred (of the Christian religion), as soon as they have come to
know it, leave off their hatred when they cease to be ignorant; nay more, they
actually themselves become what they had hated, and take to hating what they had
once been. Day after day, indeed, you groan over the increasing number of the
Christians. Your constant cry is, that the state is beset (by us); that
Christians are in your fields, in your camps, in your islands. You grieve over
it as a calamity, that each sex, every age--in short, every rank--is passing
over from you to us; yet you do not even after this set your minds upon
reflecting whether there be not here some latent good. You do not allow
yourselves in suspicions which may prove too true, nor do you like ventures
which may be too near the mark. This is the only instance in which human
curiosity grows torpid. You love to be ignorant of what other men rejoice to
have discovered; you would rather not know it, because you now cherish your
hatred as if you were aware that, (with the knowledge,) your hatred would
certainly come to an end. Still, if there shall be no just ground for hatred, it
will surely be found to be the best course to cease from the past injustice.
Should, however, a cause have really existed there will be no diminution of the
hatred, which will indeed accumulate so much the more in the consciousness of
its justice; unless it be, forsooth, that you are ashamed to cast off your
faults, or sorry to free yourselves from blame. I know very well with what
answer you usually meet the argument from our rapid increase. That indeed must
not, you say, be hastily accounted a good thing which converts a great number of
persons, and gains them over to its side. I am aware how the mind is apt to take
to evil courses. How many there are which forsake virtuous living! How many seek
refuge in the opposite! Many, no doubt; nay, very many, as the last days
approach. But such a comparison as this fails in fairness of application; for
all are agreed in thinking thus of the evil-doer, so that not even the guilty
themselves, who take the wrong side, and turn away from the pursuit of good to
perverse ways, are bold enough to defend evil as good. Base things excite their
fear, impious ones their shame. In short, they are eager for concealment, they
shrink from publicity, they tremble when caught; when accused, they deny; even
when tortured, they do not readily or invariably confess (their crime); at all
events, they grieve when they are condemned. They reproach themselves for their
past life; their change from innocence to an evil disposition they even
attribute to fate. They cannot say that it is not a wrong thing, therefore they
will not admit it to be their own act. As for the Christians, however, in what
does their case resemble this? No one is ashamed; no one is sorry, except for
his former (sins). If he is pointed 110

at (for his religion), he glories in it; if dragged to trial, he does not
resist; if accused, he makes no defence. When questioned, he confesses; when
condemned, he rejoices. What sort of evil is this, in which the nature of evil
comes to a standstill?

CHAP. II.--THE HEATHEN PERVERTED JUDGMENT IN THE TRIAL OF CHRISTIANS. THEY
WOULD BE MORE CONSISTENT IF THEY DISPENSED WITH ALL FORM OF TRIAL. TERTULLIAN
URGES THIS WITH MUCH INDIGNATION.

In this case you actually conduct trials contrary to the usual form of
judicial process against criminals; for when culprits are brought up for trial,
should they deny the charge, you press them for a confession by tortures. When
Christians, however, confess without compulsion, you aply the torture to induce
them to deny. What great perverseness is this, when you stand out against
confession, and change the use of the torture, compelling the man who frankly
acknowledges the charge to evade it, and him who is unwilling, to deny it? You,
who preside for the purpose of extorting truth, demand falsehood from us alone
that we may declare ourselves not to be what we are. I suppose you do not want
us to be bad men, and therefore you earnestly wish to exclude us from that
character. To be sure, you put others on the rack and the gibbet, to get them to
deny what they have the reputation of being. Now, when they deny (the charge
against them), you do not believe them but on our denial, you instantly believe
us. If you feel sure that we are the most injurious of men, why, even in
processes against us, are we dealt with by you differently from other offenders?
I do not mean that you make no account of either an accusation or a denial (for
your practice is not hastily to condemn men without an indictment and a
defence); but, to take an instance in the trial of a murderer, the case is not
at once ended, or the inquiry satisfied, on a man's confessing himself the
murderer. However complete his confession, you do not readily believe him; but
over and above this, you inquire into accessory circumstances--how often had he
committed murder; with what weapons, in what place, with what plunder,
accomplices, and abettors after the fact (was the crime perpetrated)--to the end
that nothing whatever respecting the criminal might escape detection, and that
every means should be at hand for arriving at a true verdict. In our case, on
the contrary, whom you believe to be guilty of more atrocious and numerous
crimes, you frame your indictments in briefer and lighter terms. I suppose you
do not care to load with accusations men whom you earnestly wish to get rid of,
or else you do not think it necessary to inquire into matters which are known to
you already. It is, however, all the more perverse that you compel us to deny
charges about which you have the clearest evidence. But, indeed, how much more
consistent were it with your hatred of us to dispense with all forms of judicial
process, and to strive with all your might not to urge us to say "No," and so
have to acquit the objects of your hatred; but to confess all and singular the
crimes laid to our charge, that your resentments might be the better glutted
with an accumulation of our punishments, when it becomes known how many of those
feasts each one of us may have celebrated, and how many incests we may have
committed under cover of the night! What am I saying? Since your researches for
rooting out our society must needs be made on a wide scale, you ought to extend
your inquiry against our friends and companions. Let our infanticides and the
dressers (of our horrible repasts) be brought out,--ay, and the very dogs which
minister to our (incestuous) nuptials; then the business (of our trial) would be
without a fault. Even to the crowds which throng the spectacles a zest would be
given; for with how much greater eagerness would they resort to the theatre,
when one had to fight in the lists who had devoured a hundred babies! For since
such horrid and monstrous crimes are reported of us, they ought, of course, to
be brought to light, lest they should seem to be incredible, and the public
detestation of us should begin to cool. For most persons are slow to believe
such things, feeling a horrible disgust at supposing that our nature could have
an appetite 111

for the food of wild beasts, when it has precluded these from all concubinage
with the race of man.

CHAP. III.--THE GREAT OFFENCE IN THE CHRISTIANS LIES IN THEIR VERY NAME.
THE NAME VINDICATED.

Since, therefore, you who are in other cases most scrupulous and persevering
in investigating charges of far less serious import, relinquish your care in
cases like ours, which are so horrible, and of such surpassing sin that impiety
is too mild a word for them, by declining to hear confession, which should
always be an important process for those who conduct judicial proceedings; and
failing to make a full inquiry, which should be gone into by such as sue for a
condemnation, it becomes evident that the crime laid to our charge consists not
of any sinful conduct, but lies wholly in our name. If, indeed, any real crimes
were clearly adducible against us, their very names would condemn us, if found
applicable, so that distinct sentences would be pronounced against us in this
wise: Let that murderer, or that incestuous criminal, or whatever it be that we
are charged with, be led to execution, be crucified, or be thrown to the beasts.
Your sentences, however, import only that one has confessed himself a Christian.
No name of a crime stands against us, but only the crime of a name. Now this in
very deed is neither more nor less than the entire odium which is felt against
us. The name is the cause: some mysterious force intensified by your ignorance
assails it, so that you do not wish to know for certain that which for certain
you are sure you know nothing of; and therefore, further, you do not believe
things which are not submitted to proof, and, lest they should be easily
refuted, you refuse to make inquiry, so that the odious name is punished under
the presumption of (real) crimes. In order, therefore, that the issue may be
withdrawn from the offensive name, we are compelled to deny it; then upon our
denial we are acquitted, with an entire absolution for the past: we are no
longer murderers, no longer incestuous, because we have lost that name. But
since this point is dealt with in a place of its own, do you tell us plainly why
you are pursuing this name even to extirpation? What crime, what offence, what
fault is there in a name? For you are barred by the rule which puts it out of
your power to allege crimes (of any man), which no legal action moots, no
indictment specifies, no sentence enumerates. In any case which is submitted to
the judge, inquired into against the defendant, responded to by him or denied,
and cited from the bench, I acknowledge a legal charge. Concerning, then, the
merit of a name, whatever offence names may be charged with, whatever
impeachment words may be amenable to, I for my part think, that not even a
complaint is due to a word or a name, unless indeed it has a barbarous sound, or
smacks of ill-luck, or is immodest, or is indecorous for the speaker, or
unpleasant to the hearer. These crimes in (mere) words and names are just like
barbarous words and phrases, which have their fault, and their solecism, and
their absurdity of figure. The name Christian, however, so far as its meaning
goes, bears the sense of anointing. Even when by a faulty pronunciation you call
us "Chrestians" (for you are not certain about even the sound of this noted
name), you in fact lisp out the sense of pleasantness and goodness. You are
therefore vilifying in harmless men even the harmless name we bear, which is not
inconvenient for the tongue, nor harsh to the ear, nor injurious to a single
being, nor rude for our country, being a good Greek word, as many others also
are, and pleasant in sound and sense. Surely, surely, names are not things which
deserve punishment by the sword, or the cross, or the beasts.

CHAP. IV.--THE TRUTH HATED IN THE CHRISTIANS; SO IN MEASURE WAS IT, OF
OLD, IN SOCRATES. THE VIRTUES OF THECHRISTIANS.

But the sect, you say, is punished in the name of its founder. Now in the
first place it is, no doubt a fair and usual custom that a sect should be marked
out by the name of its founder, since philosophers are called Pythagoreans and
Platonists after their masters; in the same way physicians are called after
Erasistratus, and grammarians after Aristarchus. If, therefore, a sect has a bad
character because its founder was bad, it is punished as the traditional bearer
of a bad name. But this would be indulging in a rash assumption.

112

The first step was to find out what the founder was, that his sect might be
understood, instead of hindering inquiry into the founder's character from the
sect. But in our case, by being necessarily ignorant of the sect, through your
ignorance of its founder, or else by not taking a fair survey of the founder,
because you make no inquiry into his sect, you fasten merely on the name, just
as if you vilified in it both sect and founder, whom you know nothing of
whatever. And yet you openly allow your philosophers the right of attaching
themselves to any school, and bearing its founder's name as their own; and
nobody stirs up any hatred against them, although both in public and in private
they bark out their bitterest eloquence against your customs, rites, ceremonies,
and manner of life, with so much contempt for the laws, and so little respect
for persons, that they even flaunt their licentious words

against the emperors themselves with impunity. And yet it is the truth, which
is so troublesome to the world, that these philosophers affect, but which
Christians possess: they therefore who have it in possession afford the greater
displeasure, because he who affects a thing plays with it; he who possesses it
maintains it. For example, Socrates was condemned on that side (of his wisdom)
in which he came nearest in his search to the truth, by destroying your gods.
Although the name of Christian was not at that time in the world, yet truth was
always suffering condemnation. Now you will not deny that he was a wise man, to
whom your own Pythian (god) had borne witness.

Socrates, he said, was the wisest of men. Truth overbore Apollo, and made him
pronounce even against himself since he acknowledged that he was no god, when he
affirmed that that was the wisest man who was denying the gods. However,

on your principle he was the less wise because he denied the gods, although,
in truth, he was all the wiser by reason of this denial. It is just in the same
way that you are in the habit of saying of us: "Lucius Titius is a good man,
only he is a Christian;" while another says; "I wonder that so worthy

a man as Caius Seius has become a Christian. " According to the blindness of
their folly men praise what they know, (and) blame what they are ignorant of;
and that which they know, they vitiate by that which they do not know. It occurs
to none (to consider) whether a man is not good and wise because he is a
Christian, or therefore a Christian because he is wise and good, although it is
more usual in human conduct to determine obscurities by what is manifest, than
to prejudice what is manifest by what is obscure. Some persons wonder that those
whom they had known to be unsteady, worthless, or wicked before they bore this
name, have been suddenly converted to virtuous courses; and yet they better know
how to wonder (at the change) than to attain to it; others are so obstinate in
their strife as to do battle with their own best interests, which they have it
in their power to secure by intercourse with that hated name. I know more than
one husband, formerly anxious about their wives' conduct, and unable to bear
even mice to creep into their bed-room without a groan of suspicion, who have,
upon discovering the cause of their new assiduity, and their unwonted attention
to the duties of home, offered the entire loan of their wives to others,
disclaimed all jealousy, (and) preferred to be the husbands of she-wolves than
of Christian women: they could commit themselves to a perverse abuse of nature,
but they could not permit their wives to be reformed for the better! A father
disinherited his son, with whom he had ceased to find fault. A master sent his
slave to bridewell, whom he had even found to be indispensable to him. As soon
as they discovered them to be Christians, they wished they were criminals again;
for our discipline carries its own evidence in itself, nor are we betrayed by
anything else than our own goodness, just as bad men also become conspicuous by
their own evil. Else how is it that we alone are, contrary to the lessons of
nature, branded as very evil because of our good?

For what mark do we exhibit except the prime wisdom, which teaches us not to
worship the frivolous works of the human hand; the temperance, by which we
abstain from other men's goods; the chastity, which we pollute not even with a
look; the compassion, which prompts us to help the needy; the truth itself,
which makes us give offence; and liberty, for which we have even learned to die?
Whoever wishes to understand who the Christians are, must needs employ these
marks for their discovery.

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CHAP. V.--THE INCONSISTENT LIFE OF ANY FALSE CHRISTIAN NO MORE
CONDEMNS

TRUE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST, THAN A PASSING CLOUD OBSCURES A SUMMER SKY.

As to your saying of us that we are a most shameful set, and utterly steeped
in luxury, avarice, and depravity, we will not deny that this is true of some.
It is, however, a sufficient testimonial for our name, that this cannot be said
of all, not even of the greater part of us. It must happen even in the
healthiest and purest body, that a mole should grow, or a wart arise on it, or
freckles disfigure it. Not even the sky itself is clear with so perfect a
serenity as not to be flecked with some filmy cloud. A slight spot on the face,
because it is obvious in so conspicuous a part, only serves to show purity of
the entire complexion. The goodness of the larger portion is well attested by
the slender flaw. But although you prove that some of our people are evil, you
do not hereby prove that they are Christians. Search and see whether there is
any sect to which (a partial shortcoming) is imputed as a general stain. You are
accustomed in conversation yourselves to say, in disparagement of us, "Why is
so-and-so deceitful, when the Christians are so self-denying? why merciless,
when they are so merciful?" You thus bear your testimony to the fact that this
is not the character of Christians, when you ask, in the way of a retort, how
men who are reputed to be Christians can be of such and such a disposition.
There is a good deal of difference between an imputation and a name, between an
opinion and the truth. For names were appointed for the express purpose of
setting their proper limits between mere designation and actual condition. How
many indeed are said to be philosophers, who for all that do not fulfil the law
of philosophy? All bear the name in respect of their profession; but they hold
the designation without the excellence of the profession, and they disgrace the
real thing under the shallow pretence of its name. Men are not straightway of
such and such a character, because they are said to be so; but when they are
not, it is vain to say so of them: they only deceive people who attach reality
to a name, when it is its consistency with fact which decides the condition
implied in the name. And yet persons of this doubtful stamp do not assemble with
us, neither do they belong to our communion: by their delinquency they become
yours once more since we should be unwilling to mix even with them whom your
violence and cruelty compelled to recant. Yet we should, of course, be more
ready to have included amongst us those who have unwillingly forsaken our
discipline than wilful apostates. However, you have no right to call them
Christians, to whom the Christians themselves deny that name, and who have not
learned to deny themselves.

CHAP. VI.--THE INNOCENCE OF THE CHRISTIANS NOT COMPROMISED BY THE
INIQUITOUS LAWS WHICH WERE MADE AGAINST THEM.

Whenever these statements and answers of ours, which truth suggests of its
own accord, press and restrain your conscience, which is the witness of its own
ignorance, you betake yourselves in hot haste to that poor altar of refuge, the
authority of the laws, because these, of course, would never punish the
offensive sect, if their deserts had not been fully considered by those who made
the laws. Then what is it which has prevented a like consideration on the part
of those who put the laws in force, when, in the case of all other crimes which
are similarly forbidden and punished by the laws, the penalty is not inflicted
until it is sought by regular process? Take, for instance, the case of a
murderer or an adulterer. An examination is ordered touching the particulars of
the crime, even though it is patent to all what its nature is. Whatever wrong
has been done by the Christian ought to be brought to light. No law forbids
inquiry to be made; on the contrary, inquiry is made in the interest of the
laws. For how are you to keep the law by precautions against that which the law
forbids, if you neutralize the carefulness of the precaution by your failing to
perceive what it is yon have to keep? No law must keep to itself the knowledge
of its own righteousness, but (it owes it) to those from whom it claims
obedience. The law, however, becomes an object of suspicion when it declines to
approve itself. Naturally enough, then, are the laws against 114

the Christians supposed to be just and deserving of respect and observance,
just as long as men remain ignorant of their aim and purport; but when this is
perceived, their extreme injustice is discovered, and they are deservedly
rejected with abhorrence, along with (their instruments of torture)--the swords,
the crosses, and the lions. An unjust law secures no respect. In my opinion,
however, there is a suspicion among you that some of these laws are unjust,
since not a day passes without your modifying their severity and iniquity by
fresh deliberations and decisions.

CHAP. VII.--THE CHRISTIANS DEFAMED. A SARCASTIC DESCRIPTION OF FAME; ITS
DECEPTION AND ATROCIOUS SLANDERS OF THE CHRISTIANS LENGTHILY DESCRIBED.

Whence comes it to pass, you will say to us, that such a character could have
been attributed to you, as to have justified the lawmakers perhaps by its
imputation? Let me ask on my side, what voucher they had then, or you now, for
the truth of the imputation? (You answer,) Fame. Well, now, is not this- "Fama
malum, quo non aliud velocius ullum?"

Now, why a plague, if it be always true? It never ceases from lying; nor even
at the moment when it reports the truth is it so free from the wish to lie, as
not to interweave the false with the true, by processes of addition, diminution,
or confusion of various facts. Indeed, such is its condition, that it can only
continue to exist while it lies. For it lives only just so long as it fails to
prove anything. As soon as it proves itself true, it falls; and, as if its
office of reporting news were at an end, it quits its post: thenceforward the
thing is held to be a fact, and it passes under that name. No one, then, says,
to take an instance, "The report is that this happened at Rome," or, "The rumour
goes that he has got a province;" but, "He has got a province," and, "This
happened at Rome." Nobody mentions a rumour except at an uncertainty, because
nobody can be sure of a rumour, but only of certain knowledge; and none but a
fool believes a rumour, because no wise man puts faith in an uncertainty. In
however wide a circuit a report has been circulated, it must needs have
originated some time or other from one mouth; afterwards it creeps on somehow to
ears and tongues which pass it on and so obscures the humble error in which it
began, that no one considers whether the mouth which first set it a-going
disseminated a falsehood,--a circumstance which often happens either from a
temper of rivalry, or a suspicious turn, or even the pleasure of feigning news.
It is, however, well that time reveals all things, as your own sayings and
proverbs testify; yea, as nature herself attests, which has so ordered it that
nothing lies hid, not even that which fame has not reported. See, now, what a
witness you have suborned against us: it has not been able up to this time to
prove the report it set in motion, although it has had so long a time to
recommend it to our acceptance. This name of ours took its rise in the reign of
Augustus; under Tiberius it was taught with all clearness and publicity; under
Nero it was ruthlessly condemned, and you may weigh its worth and character even
from the person of its persecutor. If that prince was a pious man, then the
Christians are impious; if he was just, if he was pure, then the Christians are
unjust and impure; if he was not a public enemy, we are enemies of our country:
what sort of men we are, our persecutor himself shows, since he of course
punished what produced hostility to himself. Now, although every other
institution which existed under Nero has been destroyed, yet this of ours has
firmly remained--righteous, it would seem, as being unlike the author (of its
persecution). Two hundred and fifty years, then, have not yet passed since our
life began. During the interval there have been so many criminals; so many
crosses have obtained immortality; so many infants have been slain; so many
loaves steeped in blood; so many extinctions of candles; so many dissolute
marriages. And up to the present time it is mere report which fights against the
Christians. No doubt it has a strong support in the wickedness of the human
mind, and utters its falsehoods with more success among cruel and savage men.
For the more inclined you are to maliciousness, the more ready are you to
believe evil; in short, men more easily believe the evil that is false, than the
good which is true. Now, if injustice has left any place within you for the
exercise of prudence in investigating the truth of reports, justice of course
demanded 115

that you should examine by whom the report could have been spread among the
multitude, and thus circulated through the world. For it could not have been by
the Christians themselves, I suppose, since by the very constitution and law of
all mysteries the obligation of silence is imposed. How much more would this be
the case in such (mysteries as are ascribed to us), which, if divulged, could
not fail to bring down instant punishment from the prompt resentment of men!
Since, therefore, the Christians are not their own betrayers, it follows that it
must be strangers. Now I ask, how could strangers obtain knowledge of us, when
even true and lawful mysteries exclude every stranger from witnessing them,
unless illicit ones are less exclusive?

Well, then, it is more in keeping with the character of strangers both to be
ignorant (of the true state of a case), and to invent (a false account). Our
domestic servants (perhaps) listened, and peeped through crevices and holes, and
stealthily got information of our ways. What, then, shall we say when our
servants betray them to you? It is better, (to be sure,) for us all not to be
betrayed by any; but still, if our practices be so atrocious, how much more
proper is it when a righteous indignation bursts asunder even all ties of
domestic fidelity? How was it possible for it to endure what horrified the mind
and affrighted the eye? This is also a wonderful thing, both that he who was so
overcome with impatient excitement as to turn informer, did not likewise desire
to prove (what he reported), and that he who heard the informer's story did not
care to see for himself, since no doubt the reward is equal both for the
informer who proves what he reports, and for the hearer who convinces himself of
the credibility of what he hears. But then you say that (this is precisely what
has taken place): first came the rumour, then the exhibition of the proof; first
the hearsay, then the inspection; and after this, fame received its commission.
Now this, I must say, surpasses all admiration, that that was once for all
detected and divulged which is being for ever repeated, unless, forsooth, we
have by this time ceased from the reiteration of such things (as are alleged of
us). But we are called still by the same (offensive) name, and we are supposed
to be still engaged in the same practices, and we multiply from day to day; the
more we are, to the more become we objects of hatred. Hatred increases as the
material for it increases. Now, seeing that the multitude of offenders is ever
advancing, how is it that the crowd of informers does not keep equal pace
therewith? To the best of my belief, even our manner of life has become better
known; you know the very days of our assemblies; therefore we are both besieged,
and attacked, and kept prisoners actually in our secret congregations. Yet who
ever came upon a half-consumed corpse (amongst us)? Who has detected the traces
of a bite in our blood-steeped loaf? Who has discovered, by a sudden light
invading our darkness, any marks of impurity, I will not say of incest, (in our
feasts)? If we save ourselves. by a bribe from being dragged out before the
public gaze with such a character, how is it that we are still oppressed? We
have it indeed in our own power not to be thus apprehended at all; for who
either sells or buys information about a crime, if the crime itself has no
existence? But why need I disparagingly refer to strange spies and informers,
when you allege against us such charges as we certainly do not ourselves divulge
with very much noise--either as soon as you hear of them, if we previously show
them to you, or after you have yourselves discovered them, if they are for the
time concealed from you? For no doubt, when any desire initiation in the
mysteries, their custom is first to go to the master or father of the sacred
rites. Then he will say (to the applicant), You must bring an infant, as a
guarantee for our rites, to be sacrificed, as well as some bread to be broken
and dipped in his blood; you also want candles, and dogs tied together to upset
them, and bits of meat to rouse the dogs. Moreover, a mother too, or a sister,
is necessary for you. What, however, is to be said if you have neither? I
suppose in that case you could not be a genuine Christian. Now, do let me ask
you, Will such things, when reported by strangers, bear to be spread about (as
charges against us)? It is impossible for such persons to understand proceedings
in which they take no part. The first step of the process is perpetrated with
artifice; our feasts and our marriages are invented and detailed by ignorant
persons, 116

who had never before heard about Christian mysteries. And though they
afterwards cannot help acquiring some knowledge of them, it is even then as
having to be administered by others whom they bring on the scene. Besides, how
absurd is it that the profane know mysteries which the priest knows not! They
keep them all to themselves, then, and take them for granted; and so these
tragedies, (worse than those) of Thyestes or OEdipus, do not at all come forth
to light, nor find their way to the public. Even more voracious bites take
nothing away from the credit of such as are initiated, whether servants or
masters. If, however, none of these allegations can be proved to be true, how
incalculable must be esteemed the grandeur (of that religion) which is
manifestly not overbalanced even by the burden of these vast atrocities! O ye
heathen; who have and deserve our pity, behold, we set before you the promise
which our sacred system offers. It guarantees eternal life to such as follow and
observe it; on the other hand, it threatens with the eternal punishment of an
unending fire those who are profane and hostile; while to both classes alike is
preached a resurrection from the dead. We are not now concerned about the
doctrine of these (verities), which are discussed in their proper place.
Meanwhile, however, believe them, even as we do ourselves, for I want to know
whether you are ready to reach them, as we do, through such crimes. Come,
whosoever you are, plunge your sword into an infant; or if that is another's
office, then simply gaze at the breathing creature dying before it has lived; at
any rate, catch its fresh blood in which to steep your bread; then feed yourself
without stint; and whilst this is going on, recline. Carefully distinguish the
places where your mother or your sister may have made their bed; mark them well,
in order that, when the shades of night have fallen upon them, putting of course
to the test the care of every one of you, you may not make the awkward mistake
of alighting on somebody else: you would have to make an atonement, if you
failed of the incest. When you have effected all this, eternal life will be in
store for you. I want you to tell me whether you think eternal life worth such a
price. No, indeed, you do not believe it: even if you did believe it, I maintain
that you would be unwilling to give (the fee); or if willing, would be unable.
But why should others be able if you are unable? Why should you be able if
others are unable? What would you wish impunity (and) eternity to stand you in?
Do you suppose that these (blessings) can be bought by us at any price? Have
Christians teeth of a different sort from others? Have they more ample jaws? Are
they of different nerve for incestuous lust? I trow not.

It is enough for us to differ from you in condition by truth alone.

CHAP. VIII.--THE CALUMNY AGAINST THE CHRISTIANS ILLUSTRATED IN THE

DISCOVERY OF PSAMMETICHUS. REFUTATION OF THE STORY.

We are indeed said to be the "third race" of men. What, a dog-faced race? Or
broadly shadow-footed? Or some subterranean Antipodes? If you attach any meaning
to these names, pray tell us what are the first and the second race, that so we
may know something of this "third." Psammetichus thought that he had hit upon
the ingenious discovery of the primeval man. He is said to have removed certain
new-born infants from all human intercourse, and to have entrusted them to a
nurse, whom he had previously deprived of her tongue, in order that, being
completely exiled from all sound of the human voice, they might form their
speech without hearing it; and thus, deriving it from themselves alone, might
indicate what that first nation was whose speech was dictated by nature. Their
first utterance was BEKKOS, a word which means "bread" in the language of
Phrygia: the Phrygians, therefore, are supposed to be the first of the human
race. But it will not be out of place if we make one observation, with a view to
show how your faith abandons itself more to vanities than to verities.

117

Can it be, then, at all credible that the nurse retained her life, after the
loss of so important a member, the very organ of the breath of life,--cut out,
too, from the very root, with her throat mutilated, which cannot be wounded even
on the outside without danger, and the putrid gore flowing back to the chest,
and deprived for so long a time of her food? Come, even suppose that by the
remedies of a Philomela she retained her life, in the way supposed by wisest
persons, who account for the dumbness not by cutting out the tongue, but from
the blush of shame; if on such a supposition she lived, she would still be able
to blurt out some dull sound. And a shrill inarticulate noise from opening the
mouth only, without any modulation of the lips, might be forced from the mere
throat, though there were no tongue to help. This, it is probable, the infants
readily imitated, and the more so because it was the only sound; only they did
it a little more neatly, as they had tongues; and then they attached to it a
definite signification. Granted, then, that the Phrygians were the earliest
race, it does not follow that the Christians are the third. For how many other
nations come regularly after the Phrygians? Take care, however, lest those whom
you call the third race should obtain the first rank, since there is no nation
indeed which is not Christian. Whatever nation, therefore, was the first, is
nevertheless Christian now. It is ridiculous folly which makes you say we are
the latest race, and then specifically call us the third. But it is in respect
of our religion. not of our nation, that we are supposed to be the third; the
series being the Romans, the Jews, and the Christians after them. Where, then,
are the Greeks? or if they are reckoned amongst the Romans in regard to their
superstition (since it was from Greece that Rome borrowed even her gods), where
at least are the Egyptians, since these have, so far as I know, a mysterious
religion peculiar to themselves? Now, if they who belong to the third race are
so monstrous, what must they be supposed to be who preceded them in the first
and the second place?

CHAP. IX.--THE CHRISTIANS ARE NOT THE CAUSE OF PUBLIC CALAMITIES: THERE
WERE SUCH TROUBLES BEFORE CHRISTIANITY.

But why should I be astonished at your vain imputations? Under the same
natural form, malice and folly have always been associated in one body and
growth, and have ever opposed us under the One instigator of error. Indeed, I
feel no astonishment; and therefore, as it is necessary for my subject, I will
enumerate some instances, that you may feel the astonishment by the enumeration
of the folly into which you fall, when you insist on our being the causes of
every public calamity or injury. If the Tiber has overflowed its banks, if the
Nile has remained in its bed, if the sky has been still, or the earth been in
commotion, if death has made its devastations, or famine its afflictions, your
cry immediately is, "This is the fault of the Christians!" As if they who fear
the true God could have to fear a light thing, or at least anything else (than
an earthquake or famine, or such visitations). I suppose it is as despisers of
your gods that we call down on us these strokes of theirs. As we have remarked
already, three hundred years have not yet passed in our existence; but what vast
scourges before that time fell on all the world, on its various cities and
provinces! what terrible wars, both foreign and domestic! what pestilences,
famines, conflagrations, yawnings, and quakings of the earth has history
recorded! Where were the Christians, then, when the Roman state furnished so
many chronicles of its disasters? Where were the Christians when the islands
Hiera, Anaphe, and Delos, and Rhodes, and Cea were desolated with multitudes of
men? or, again, when the land mentioned by Plato as larger than Asia or Africa
was sunk in the Atlantic Sea? or when fire from heaven overwhelmed Volsinii, and
flames from their own mountain consumed Pompeii? when the sea of Corinth was
engulphed by an earthquake? when the whole world was destroyed by the deluge?
Where then were (I will not say the Christians, who despise your gods, but) your
gods themselves, who are proved to be of later origin than that great ruin by
the very places and cities in which they were born, sojourned, and were buried,
and even those which they founded? For else they would not have remained to the
present day, unless they had been more recent than that catastrophe, If you do
not care to peruse and reflect upon these testimonies of history, the record of
which affects you differently from us, in order 118

especially that you may not have to tax your gods with extreme injustice,
since they injure even their worshippers on account of their despisers, do you
not then prove yourselves to be also in the wrong, when you hold them to be
gods, who make no distinction between the deserts of yourselves and profane
persons? If, however, as it is now and then very vainly said, you incur the
chastisement of your gods because you are too slack in our extirpation, you then
have settled the question of their weakness and insignificance; for they would
not be angry with you for loitering over our punishment, if they could do
anything themselves,--although you admit the same thing indeed in another way,
whenever by inflicting punishment on us you seem to be avenging them. If one
interest is maintained by another party, that which defends is the greater of
the two. What a shame, then, must it be for gods to be defended by a human
being!

CHAP. X.--THE CHRISTIANS ARE NOT THE ONLY CONTEMNERS OF THE GODS. CONTEMPT
OF THEM OFTEN DISPLAYED BY HEATHEN OFFICIAL PERSONS. HOMER MADE THE GODSCONTEMPTIBLE.

Pour out now all your venom; fling against this name of ours all your shafts
of calumny: I shall stay no longer to refute them; but they shall by and by be
blunted, when we come to explain our entire discipline. I shall content myself
now indeed with plucking these shafts out of our own body, and hurling them back
on yourselves. The same wounds which you have inflicted on us by your charges I
shall show to be imprinted on yourselves, that you may fall by your own swords
and javelins. Now, first, when you direct against us the general charge of
divorcing ourselves from the institutions of our forefathers, consider again and
again whether you are not yourselves open to that accusation in common with us.
For when I look through your life and customs, lo, what do I discover but the
old order of things corrupted, nay, destroyed by you? Of the laws I have already
said, that you are daily supplanting them with novel decrees and statutes. As to
everything else in your manner of life, how great are the changes you have made
from your ancestors--in your style, your dress, your equipage, your very food,
and even in your speech; for the old-fashioned you banish, as if it were
offensive to you! Everywhere, in your public pursuits and private duties,
antiquity is repealed; all the authority of your forefathers your own authority
has superseded. To be sure, you are for ever praising old customs; but this is
only to your greater discredit, for you nevertheless persistently reject them.

How great must your perverseness have been, to have bestowed approbation on
your ancestors' institutions, which were too inefficient to be lasting, all the
while that you were rejecting the very objects of your approbation! But even
that very heir-loom of your forefathers, which you seem to guard and defend with
greatest fidelity, in which you actually find your strongest grounds for
impeaching us as violators of the law, and from which your hatred of the
Christian name derives all its life--I mean the worship of the gods--I

shall prove to be undergoing ruin and contempt from yourselves no less than

(from us),--unless it be that there is no reason for our being regarded as
despisers of the gods like yourselves, on the ground that nobody despises what
he knows has absolutely no existence. What certainly exists can be despised.

That which is nothing, suffers nothing. From those, therefore, to whom it is
an existing thing, must necessarily proceed the suffering which affects it.

All the heavier, then, is the accusation which burdens you who believe that
there are gods and (at the same time) despise them, who worship and also reject
them, who honour and also assail them. One may also gather the same conclusion
from this consideration, above all: since you worship various gods, some one and
some another, you of course despise those which you do not worship. A preference
for the one is not possible without slighting the other, and no choice can be
made without a rejection. He who selects some one out of many, has already
slighted the other which he does not select. But it is impossible that so many
and so great gods can be worshipped by all. Then you must have exercised your
contempt (in this matter) even at the beginning, since indeed you were not then
afraid of so ordering things, that all the gods could not become objects of
worship to all. For those very wise and prudent ancestors of yours, whose
institutions you know not how to repeal, especially in respect of your gods, are
themselves found to have been impious. I am much mistaken, if they did not
sometimes decree that no general should dedicate a temple, which he may have
vowed in battle, before the senate gave its sanction; as in the case of Marcus
AEmilius, who had made 119

a vow to the god Alburnus. Now is it not confessedly the greatest impiety,
nay, the greatest insult, to place the honour of the Deity at the will and
pleasure of human judgment, so that there cannot be a god except the senate
permit him? Many times have the censors destroyed (a god) without consulting the
people. Father Bacchus, with all his ritual, was certainly by the consuls, on
the seate's authority, cast not only out of the city, but out of all Italy;
whilst Varro informs us that Serapis also, and Isis, and Arpocrates, and Anubis,
were excluded from the Capitol, and that their altars which the senate had
thrown down were only restored by the popular violence. The Consul Gabinius,
however, on the first day of the ensuing January, although he gave a tardy
consent to some sacrifices, in deference to the crowd which assembled, because
he had failed to decide about Serapis and Isis, yet held the judgment of the
senate to be more potent than the clamour of the multitude, and forbade the
altars to be built. Here, then, you have amongst your own forefathers, if not
the name, at all events the procedure, of the Christians, which despises the
gods. If, however, you were even innocent of the charge of treason against them
in the honour you pay them, I still find that you have made a consistent advance
in superstition as well as impiety. For how much more irreligious are you found
to be! There are your household gods, the Lares and the Penates, which you
possess by a family consecration: you even tread them profanely under foot, you
and your domestics, by hawking and pawning them for your wants or your whims.
Such insolent sacrilege might be excusable, if it were not practised against
your humbler deities; as it is, the case is only the more insolent. There is,
however, some consolation for your private household gods under these affronts,
that you treat your public deities with still greater indignity and insolence.
First of all, you advertise them for auction, submit them to public sale, knock
them down to the highest bidder, when you every five years bring them to the
hammer among your revenues. For this purpose you frequent the temple of Serapis
or the Capitol, hold your sales there, conclude your contracts, as if they were
markets, with the well-known voice of the crier, (and) the self-same levy of the
quaestor. Now lands become cheaper when burdened with tribute, and men by the
capitation tax diminish in value (these are the well-known marks of slavery).
But the gods, the more tribute they pay, become more holy; or rather, the more
holy they are, the more tribute do they pay. Their majesty is converted into an
article of traffic; men drive a business with their religion; the sanctity of
the gods is beggared with sales and contracts. You make merchandise of the
ground of your temples, of the approach to your altars, of your offerings, of
your sacrifices. You sell the whole divinity (of your gods). You will not permit
their gratuitous worship. The auctioneers necessitate more repairs than the
priests. It was not enough that you had insolently made a profit of your gods,
if we would test the amount of your contempt; and you are not content to have
withheld honour from them, you must also depreciate the little you do render to
them by some indignity or other. What, indeed, do you do by way of honouring
your gods, which you do not equally offer to your dead? You build temples for
the gods, you erect temples also to the dead; you build altars for the gods, you
build them also for the dead; you inscribe the same superscription over both;
you sketch out the same lineaments for their statues--as best suits their
genius, or profession, or age; you make an old man of Saturn, a beardless youth
of Apollo; you form a virgin from Diana; in Mars you consecrate a soldier, a
blacksmith in Vulcan. No wonder, therefore, if you slay the same victims and
burn the same odours for your dead as you do for your gods. What excuse can be
found for that insolence which classes the dead of whatever sort as equal with
the gods? Even to your princes there are assigned the services of priests and
sacred ceremonies, and chariots, and cars, and the honours of the solisternia
and the lectisternia, holidays and games. Rightly enough, since heaven is open
to them; still it is none the less contumelious to the gods: in the first place,
because it could not possibly be decent that other beings should be numbered
with them, even if it has been given to them to become divine after their birth;
in the second place, because the witness who beheld the man caught up into
heaven would not forswear himself so freely and palpably before the people, if
it were not for the con 120

tempt felt about the objects sworn to both by himself and those who allow the
perjury. For these feel of themselves, that what is sworn to is nothing; and
more than that, they go so far as to fee the witness, because he had the courage
to publicly despise the avengers of perjury. Now, as to that, who among you is
pure of the charge of perjury? By this time, indeed, there is an end to all
danger in swearing by the gods, since the oath by Caesar carries with it more
influential scruples, which very circumstance indeed tends to the degradation of
your gods; for those who perjure themselves when swearing by Caesar are more
readily punished than those who violate an oath to a Jupiter.

But, of the two kindred feelings of contempt and derision, contempt is the
more honourable, having a certain glory in its arrogance; for it sometimes
proceeds from confidence, or the security of consciousness, or a natural
loftiness of mind. Derision, however, is a more wanton feeling, and so far it
points more directly to a carping insolence. Now only consider what great
deriders of your gods you show yourselves to be! I say nothing of your
indulgence of this feeling during your sacrificial acts, how you offer for your
victims the poorest and most emaciated creatures; or else of the sound and
healthy animals only the portions which are useless for food, such as the heads
and hoofs, or the plucked feathers and hair, and whatever at home you would have
thrown away. I pass over whatever may seem to the taste of the vulgar and
profane to have constituted the religion of your forefathers; but then the most
learned and serious classes (for seriousness and wisdom to some extent profess
to be derived from learning) are always, in fact, the most irreverent towards
your gods; and if their learning ever halts, it is only to make up for the
remissness by a more shameful invention of follies and falsehoods about their
gods. I will begin with that enthusiastic fondness which you show for him from
whom every depraved writer gets his dreams, to whom you ascribe as much honour
as you derogate from your gods, by magnifying him who has made such sport of
them. I mean Homer by this description. He it is, in my opinion, who has treated
the majesty of the Divine Being on the low level of human condition, imbuing the
gods with the falls and the passions of men; who has pitted them against each
other with varying success, like pairs of gladiators: he wounds Venus with an
arrow from a human hand; he keeps Mars a prisoner in chains for thirteen months,
with the prospect of perishing; he parades Jupiter as suffering a like indignity
from a crowd of celestial (rebels;) or he draws from him tears for Sarpedon; or
he represents him wantoning with Juno in the most disgraceful way, advocating
his incestuous passion for her by a description and enumeration of his various
amours. Since then, which of the poets has not, on the authority of their great
prince, calumniated the gods, by either betraying truth or feigning falsehood?
Have the dramatists also, whether in tragedy or comedy, refrained from making
the gods the authors of the calamities and retributions (of their plays)? I say
nothing of your philosophers, whom a certain inspiration of truth itself
elevates against the gods, and secures from all fear in their proud severity and
stern discipline. Take, for example, Socrates. In contempt of your gods, he
swears by an oak, and a dog, and a goat. Now, although he was condemned to die
for this very reason, the Athenians afterwards repented of that condemnation,
and even put to death his accusers. By this conduct of theirs the testimony of
Socrates is replaced at its full value, and I am enabled to meet you with this
retort, that in his case you have approbation bestowed on that which is
now-a-days reprobated in us. But besides this instance there is Diogenes, who, I
know not to what extent, made sport of Hercules; whilst Varro, that Diogenes of
the Roman cut, introduces to our view some three hundred Joves, or, as they
ought to be called, Jupiters, (and all) without heads. Your other wanton wits
likewise minister to your pleasures by disgracing the gods. Examine carefully
the sacrilegious beauties of your Lentuli and Hostii; now, is it the players or
your gods who become the objects of your mirth in their tricks and jokes? Then,
again, with what pleasure do you take up the literature of the stage, which
describes all the foul conduct of the gods! Their majesty is defiled in your
presence in some unchaste body. The mask of some deity, at your will, covers
some infamous paltry head. The Sun mourns for the death of his son by a
lightning-flash amid your rude rejoicing.

121

Cybele sighs for a shepherd who disdains her, without raising a blush on your
cheek; and you quietly endure songs which celebrate the gallantries of Jove. You
are, of course, possessed of a more religious spirit in the show of your
gladiators, when your gods dance, with equal zest, over the spilling of human
blood, (and) over those filthy penalties which are at once their proof and plot
for executing your criminals, or else (when) your criminals are punished
personating the gods themselves. We have often witnessed in a mutilated criminal
your god of Pessinum, Attis; a wretch burnt alive has personated Hercules. We
have laughed at the sport of your mid-day game of the gods, when Father Pluto,
Jove's own brother, drags away, hammer in hand, the remains of the gladiators;
when Mercury, with his winged cap and heated wand, tests with his cautery
whether the bodies were really lifeless, or only feigning death. Who now can
investigate every particular of this sort although so destructive of the honour
of the Divine Being, and so humiliating to His majesty? They all, indeed, have
their origin in a contempt (of the gods), on the part both of those who practise
these personations, as well as of those who are susceptible of being so
represented. I hardly know, therefore, whether your gods have more reason to
complain of yourselves or of us. After despising them on the one hand, you
flatter them on the other; if you fail in any duty towards them, you appease
them with a fee; in short, you allow yourselves to act towards them in any way
you please. We, however, live in a consistent and entire aversion to them.

CHAP. XI.--THE ABSURD CAVIL OF THE ASS'S

HEAD DISPOSED OF.

In this matter we are (said to be) guilty not merely of forsaking the
religion of the community, but of introducing a monstrous superstition; for some
among you have dreamed that our god is an ass's head,--an absurdity which
Cornelius Tacitus first suggested. In the fourth book of his histories, where he
is treating of the Jewish war, he begins his description with the origin of that
nation, and gives his own views respecting both the origin and the name of their
religion. He relates that the Jews, in their migration in the desert, when
suffering for want of water, escaped by following for guides some wild asses,
which they supposed to be going in quest of water after pasture, and that on
this account the image of one of these animals was worshipped by the Jews. From
this, I suppose, it was presumed that we, too, from our close connection with
the Jewish religion, have ours consecrated under the same emblematic form. The
same Cornelius Tacitus, however,--who, to say the truth, is most loquacious in
falsehood--forgetting his later statement, relates how Pompey the Great, after
conquering the Jews and capturing Jerusalem, entered the temple, but found
nothing in the shape of an image, though he examined the place carefully. Where,
then, should their God have been found? Nowhere else, of course than in so
memorable a temple which was carefully shut to all but the priests, and into
which there could be no fear of a stranger entering. But what apology must I
here offer for what I am going to say, when I have no other object at the moment
than to make a passing remark or two in a general way which shall be equally
applicable to yourselves? Suppose that our God, then, be an asinine person, will
you at all events deny that you possess the same characteristics with ourselves
in that matter? (Not their heads only, but) entire asses, are, to be sure,
objects of adoration to you, along with their tutelar Epona; and all herds, and
cattle, and beasts you consecrate, and their stables into the bargain! This,
perhaps, is your grievance against us, that, when surrounded by
cattle-worshippers of every kind we are simply devoted to asses!

CHAP. XII.--THE CHARGE OF WORSHIPPING A CROSS. THE HEATHENS THEMSELVES
MADE MUCH OF CROSSES IN SACRED THINGS; NAY, THEIR VERY IDOLS WERE FORMED ON A
CRUCIAL FRAME.

As for him who affirms that we are "the 122

priesthood of a cross," we shall claim him as our co-religionist. A cross is,
in its material, a sign of wood; amongst yourselves also the object of worship
is a wooden figure. Only, whilst with you the figure is a human one, with us the
wood is its own figure. Never mind for the present what is the shape, provided
the material is the same: the form, too, is of no importance, if so be it be the
actual body of a god. If, however, there arises a question of difference on this
point what, (let me ask,) is the difference between the Athenian Pallas, or the
Pharian Ceres, and wood formed into a cross, when each is represented by a rough
stock, without form, and by the merest rudiment of a statue of unformed wood?
Every piece of timber which is fixed in the ground in an erect position is a
part of a cross, and indeed the greater portion of its mass. But an entire cross
is attributed to us, with its transverse beam, of course, and its projecting
seat. Now you have the less to excuse you, for you dedicate to religion only a
mutilated imperfect piece of wood, while others consecrate to the sacred purpose
a complete structure. The truth, however, after all is, that your religion is
all cross, as I shall show. You are indeed unaware that your gods in their
origin have proceeded from this hated cross. Now, every image, whether carved
out of wood or stone, or molten in metal, or produced out of any other richer
material, must needs have had plastic hands engaged in its formation. Well,
then, this modeller, before he did anything else, hit upon the form of a wooden
cross, because even our own body assumes as its natural position the latent and
concealed outline of a cross. Since the head rises upwards, and the back takes a
straight direction, and the shoulders project laterally, if you simply place a
man with his arms and hands outstretched, you will make the general outline of a
cross. Starting, then, from this rudimental form and prop, as it were, he
applies a covering of clay, and so gradually completes the limbs, and forms the
body, and covers the cross within with the shape which he meant to impress upon
the clay; then from this design, with the help of compasses and leaden moulds,
he has got all ready for his image which is to be brought out into marble, or
clay, or whatever the material be of which he has determined to make his god.
(This, then, is the process:) after the cross-shaped frame, the clay; after the
clay, the god. In a well-understood routine, the cross passes into a god through
the clayey medium. The cross then you consecrate, and from it the consecrated
(deity) begins to derive his origin. By way of example, let us take the case of
a tree which grows up into a system of branches and foliage, and is a
reproduction of its own kind, whether it springs from the kernel of an olive, or
the stone of a peach, or a grain of pepper which has been duly tempered under
ground. Now, if you transplant it, or take a cutting off its branches for
another plant, to what will you attribute what is produced by the propagation?
Will it not be to the grain, or the stone, or the kernel? Because, as the third
stage is attributable to the second, and the second in like manner to the first,
so the third will have to be referred to the first, through the second as the
mean. We need not stay any longer in the discussion of this point, since by a
natural law every kind of produce throughout nature refers back its growth to
its original source; and just as the product is comprised in its primal cause,
so does that cause agree in character with the thing produced. Since, then, in
the production of your gods, you worship the cross which originates them, here
will be the original kernel and grain, from which are propagated the wooden
materials of your idolatrous images. Examples are not far to seek. Your
victories you celebrate with religious ceremony as deities; and they are the
more august in proportion to the joy they bring you. The frames on which you
hang up your trophies must be crosses: these are, as it were, the very core of
your pageants. Thus, in your victories, the religion of your camp makes even
crosses objects of worship; your standards it adores, your standards are the
sanction of its oaths; your standards it prefers before Jupiter himself, But all
that parade of images, and that display of pure gold, are (as so many) necklaces
of the crosses. in like manner also, in the banners and ensigns, which your
soldiers guard with no less sacred care, you have the streamers (and) vestments
of your crosses. You are ashamed, I suppose, to worship unadorned and simple
crosses.

123

CHAP. XIII.--THE CHARGE OF WORSHIPPING THE SUN MET BY A RETORT.

Others, with greater regard to good manners, it must be confessed, suppose
that the sun is the god of the Christians, because it is a well-known fact that
we pray towards the east, or because we make Sunday a day of festivity. What
then? Do you do less than this? Do not many among you, with an affectation of
sometimes worshipping the heavenly bodies likewise, move your lips in the
direction of the sunrise? It is you, at all events, who have even admitted the
sun into the calendar of the week; and you have selected its day, in preference
to the preceding day as the most suitable in the week for either an entire
abstinence from the bath, or for its postponement until the evening, or for
taking rest and for banqueting. By resorting to these customs, you deliberately
deviate from your own religious rites to those of strangers. For the Jewish
feasts an the Sabbath and "the Purification," and Jewish also are the ceremonies
of the lamps, and the fasts of unleavened bread, and the "littoral prayers," all
which institutions and practices are of course foreign from your gods.
Wherefore, that I may return from this digression, you who reproach us with the
sun and Sunday should consider your proximity to us. We are not far off from
your Saturn and your days of rest.

CHAP. XIV.--THE VILE CALUMNY ABOUT ONOCOETES RETORTED ON THE HEATHEN BY
TERTULLIAN.

Report has introduced a new calumny respecting our God. Not so long ago, a
most abandoned wretch in that city of yours, a man who had deserted indeed his
own religion--a Jew, in fact, who had only lost his skin, flayed of course by
wild beasts, against which he enters the lists for hire day after day with a
sound body, and so in a condition to lose his skin--carried about in public a
caricature of us with this label: Onocoetes. This (figure) had ass's ears, and
was dressed in a toga with a book, having a hoof on one of his feet. And the
crowd believed this infamous Jew. For what other set of men is the seed-plot of
all the calumny against us? Throughout the city, therefore, Onocoetes is all the
talk. As, however, it is less then "a nine days' wonder," and so destitute of
all authority from time, and weak enough from the character of its author, I
shall gratify myself by using it simply in the way of a retort. Let us then see
whether you are not here also found in our company. Now it matters not what
their form may be, when our concern is about deformed images. You have amongst
you gods with a dog's head, and a lion's head, with the horns of a cow, and a
ram, and a goat, goat-shaped or serpent-shaped, and winged in foot, head, and
back. Why therefore brand our one God so conspicuously? Many an Onocoetes is
found amongst yourselves.

CHAP. XV.--THE CHARGE OF INFANTICIDE RETORTED ON THE HEATHEN.

Since we are on a par in respect of the gods, it follows that there is no
difference between us on the point of sacrifice, or even of worship, if I may be
allowed to make good our comparison from another sort of evidence. We begin our
religious service, or initiate our mysteries, with slaying an infant. As for
you, since your own transactions in human blood and infanticide have faded from
your memory, you shall be duly reminded of them in the proper place; we now
postpone most of the instances, that we may not seem to be everywhere handling
the selfsame topics. Meanwhile, as I have said, the comparison between us does
not fail in another point of view. For if we are infanticides in one sense, you
also can hardly be deemed such in any other sense; because, although you are
forbidden by the laws to slay new-born infants, it so happens that no laws are
evaded with more impunity or greater safety, with the deliberate knowledge of
the public, and the suffrages of this entire age. Yet there is no great
difference between us, only you do not kill your infants in the way of a sacred
rite, nor (as a service) to God. But then you make away with them in a more
cruel manner, 124

because you expose them to the cold and hunger, and to wild beasts, or else
you get rid of them by the slower death of drowning. If, however, there does
occur any dissimilarity between us in this matter, you must not overlook the
fact that it is your own dear children whose life you quench; and this will
supplement, nay, abundantly aggravate, on your side of the question, whatever is
defective in us on other grounds. Well, but we are said to sup off our impious
sacrifice! Whilst we postpone to a more suitable place whatever resemblance even
to this practice is discoverable amongst yourselves, we are not far removed from
you in voracity. If in the one case there is unchastity, and in ours cruelty, we
are still on the same footing (if I may so far admit our guilt) in nature, where
cruelty is always found in concord with unchastity. But, after all, what do you
less than we; or rather, what do you not do in excess of us? I wonder whether it
be a small matter to you to pant for human entrails, because you devour
full-grown men alive? Is it, forsooth, only a trifle to lick up human blood,
when you draw out the blood which was destined to live? Is it a light thing in
your view to feed on an infant, when you consume one wholly before it is come to
the birth?

CHAP. XVI.--OTHER CHARGES REPELLED BY THE SAME METHOD. THE STORY OF THE
NOBLE ROMAN YOUTH AND HISPARENTS,

I am now come to the hour for extinguishing the lamps, and for using the
dogs, and practising the deeds of darkness. And on this point I am afraid I must
succumb to you; for what similar accusation shall I have to bring against you?
But you should at once commend the cleverness with which we make our incest look
modest, in that we have devised a spurious night, to avoid polluting the real
light and darkness, and have even thought it right to dispense with earthly
lights, and to play tricks also with our conscience. For whatever we do
ourselves, we suspect in others when we choose (to be suspicious). As for your
incestuous deeds, on the contrary, men enjoy them at full liberty, in the face
of day, or in the natural night, or before high Heaven; and in proportion to
their successful issue is your own ignorance of the result, since you publicly
indulge in your incestuous intercourse in the full cognizance of broad
day-light. (No ignorance, however, conceals our conduct from our eyes,) for in
the very darkness we are able to recognise our own misdeeds. The Persians, you
know very well, according to Ctesias, live quite promiscuously with their
mothers, in full knowledge of the fact, and without any horror; whilst of the
Macedonians it is well known that they constantly do the same thing, and with
perfect approbation: for once, when the blinded OEdipus came upon their stage,
they greeted him with laughter and derisive cheers. The actor, taking off his
mask in great alarm, said, "Gentlemen, have I displeased you?" "Certainly not,"
replied the Macedonians, "you have played your part well enough; but either the
author was very silly, if he invented (this mutilation as an atonement for the
incest), or else OEdipus was a great fool for his pains if he really so punished
himself;" and then they shouted out one to the other, Hlsuneeisthnmhtera. But how insignificant, (say you,) is the stain which
one or two nations can make on the whole world! As for us, we of course have
infected the very sun, polluted the entire ocean! Quote, then, one nation which
is free from the passions which allure the whole race of men to incest! If there
is a single nation which knows nothing of concubinage through the necessity of
age and sex--to say nothing of lust and licentiousness--that nation will be a
stranger to incest. If any nature can be found so peculiarly removed from the
human state as to be liable neither to ignorance, nor error, nor misfortune,
that alone may be adduced with any consistency as an answer to the Christians.
Reflect, therefore, on the licentiousness which floats about amongst men's
passions as if they were the winds, and consider whether there be any
communities which the full and strong tides of passion fail to waft to the
commission of this great sin. In the first place, when you expose your infants
to the mercy of others, or leave them for adoption to better parents than
yourselves, do you forget what an opportunity for incest is furnished, how wide
a scope is opened for its accidental commission? Undoubtedly, such of you as are
more serious from a principle of self-restraint and careful reflection, abstain
from lusts which could produce results of such a kind, in whatever place you may
happen to be, at home or abroad, so that no indiscriminate diffusion of seed, or
licentious reception thereof, will produce chil 125

dren to you unawares, such as their very parents, or else other children,
might encounter in inadvertent incest, for no restraint from age is regarded in
(the importunities of) lust. All acts of adultery, all cases of fornication, all
the licentiousness of public brothels, whether committed at home or perpetrated
out of doors, serve to produce confusions of blood and complications of natural
relationship, and thence to conduce to incest; from which consummation your
players and buffoons draw the materials of their exhibitions. It was from such a
source, too, that so flagrant a tragedy recently burst upon the public as that
which the prefect Fuscianus had judicially to decide. A boy of noble birth, who,
by the unintentional neglect of his attendants, had strolled too far from home,
was decoyed by some passers-by, and carried off. The paltry Greek who had the
care of him, or somebody else, in true Greek fashion, had gone into the house
and captured him. Having been taken away into Asia, he is brought, when arrived
at full age, back to Rome, and exposed for sale. His own father buys him
unawares, and treats him as a Greek. Afterwards, as was his wont, the youth is
sent by his master into the fields, chained as a slave. Thither the tutor and
the nurse had already been banished for punishment. The whole case is
represented to them; they relate each other's misfortunes: they, on the one
hand, how they had lost their ward when he was a boy; he, on the other hand,
that he had been lost from his boyhood. But they agreed in the main, that he was
a native of Rome of a noble family; perhaps he further gave sure proofs of his
identity. Accordingly, as God willed it for the purpose of fastening a stain
upon that age, a presentiment about the time excites him, the periods exactly
suit his age, even his eyes help to recall his features, some peculiar marks on
his body are enumerated His master and mistress, who are now no other than his
own father and mother, anxiously urge a protracted inquiry. The slave-dealer is
examined, the unhappy truth is all discovered. When their wickedness becomes
manifest, the parents find a remedy for their despair by hanging themselves; to
their son, who survives the miserable calamity, their property is awarded by the
prefect, not as an inheritance, but as the wages of infamy and incest. That one
case was a sufficient example for public exposure of the sins of this sort which
are secretly perpetrated among you. Nothing happens among men in solitary
isolation. But, as it seems to me, it is only in a solitary case that such a
charge can be drawn out against us, even in the mysteries of our religion. You
ply us evermore with this charge; yet there are like delinquencies to be traced
amongst you, even in your ordinary course of life.

CHAP. XVII.--THE CHRISTIAN REFUSAL TO SWEAR BY THE GENIUS OF CAESAR.
FLIPPANCY AND IRREVERENCE RETORTED ON THE HEATHEN.

As to your charges of obstinacy and presumption, whatever you allege against
us, even in these respects, there are not wanting points in which you will bear
a comparison with us. Our first step in this contumacious conduct concerns that
which is ranked by you immediately after the worship due to God, that is, the
worship due to the majesty of the Caesars, in respect of which we are charged
with being irreligious towards them, since we neither propititate their images
nor swear by their genius. We are called enemies of the people. Well, be it so;
yet at the same time (it must not be forgotten, that) the emperors find enemies
amongst you heathen, and are constantly getting surnames to signalize their
triumphs--one becoming Parthicus, and another Medicus and Germanicus. On this
head the Roman people must see to it who they are amongst whom there still
remain nations which are unsubdued and foreign to their rule. But, at all
events, you are of us, and yet you conspire against us. (In reply, we need only
state) a well-known fact, that we acknowledge the fealty of Romans to the
emperors. No conspiracy has ever broken out from our body: no Caesar's blood has
ever fixed a stain upon us, in the senate or even in the palace; no assumption
of the purple has ever in any of the provinces been affected by us. The Syrias
still exhale the odours of their corpses; still do the Gauls fail to wash away
(their blood) in the waters of their Rhone. our allegations of our insanity I
omit, be 126

cause they do not compromise the Roman name. But I will grapple with the
charge of sacrilegious vanity, and remind you of the irreverence of your own
lower classes, and the scandalous lampoons of which the statues are so
cognizant, and the sneers which are sometimes uttered at the public games, and
the curses with which the circus resounds. If not in arms, you are in tongue at
all events always rebellious. But I suppose it is quite another affair to refuse
to swear by the genius of Caesar? For it is fairly open to doubt as to who are
perjurers on this point, when you do not swear honestly even by your gods. Well,
we do not call the emperor God; for on this point sannam facimus, as the saying
is. But the truth is, that you who call Caesar God both mock him, by calling him
what he is not, and curse him, because he does not want to be what you call him.
For he prefers living to being made a god.

CHAP. XVIII.--CHRISTIANS CHARGED WITH AN OBSTINATECONTEMPT OF
DEATH. INSTANCES OF THE SAME ARE FOUND AMONGST THE HEATHEN.

The rest of your charge of obstinacy against us you sum up in this
indictment, that we boldly refuse neither your swords, nor your crosses, nor
your wild beasts, nor fire, nor tortures, such is our obduracy and contempt of
death. But (you are inconsistent in your charges); for in former times amongst
your own ancestors all these terrors have come in men's intrepidity not only to
be despised, but even to be held in great praise. How many swords there were,
and what brave men were willing to suffer by them, it were irksome to enumerate.
(If we take the torture) of the cross, of which so many instances have occurred,
exquisite in cruelty, your own Regulus readily initiated the suffering which up
to his day was without a precedent; a queen of Egypt used wild beasts of her own
(to accomplish her death); the Carthaginian woman, who in the last extremity of
her country was more courageous than her husband Asdrubal, only followed the
example, set long before by Dido herself, of going through fire to her death.
Then, again, a woman of Athens defied the tyrant, exhausted his tortures, and at
last, lest her person and sex might succumb through weakness, she bit off her
tongue and spat out of her mouth the only possible instrument of a confession
which was now out of her power. But in your own instance you account such deeds
glorious, in ours obstinate. Annihilate now the glory of your ancestors, in
order that you may thereby annihilate us also. Be content from henceforth to
repeal the praises of your forefathers, in order that you may not have to accord
commendation to us for the same (sufferings). Perhaps (you will say) the
character of a more robust age may have rendered the spirits of antiquity more
enduring. Now, however, (we enjoy) the blessing of quietness and peace; so that
the minds and dispositions of men (should be) more tolerant even towards
strangers. Well, you rejoin, be it so: you may compare yourselves with the
ancients; we must needs pursue with hatred all that we find in you offensive to
ourselves, because it does not obtain currency among us. Answer me, then, on
each particular case by itself. I am not seeking for examples on a uniform
scale. Since, forsooth, the sword through their contempt of death produced
stories of heroism amongst your ancestors, it is not, of course, from love of
life that you go to the trainers sword in hand and offer yourselves as
gladiators, (nor) through fear of death do you enrol your names in the army.
Since an ordinary woman makes her death famous by wild beasts, it cannot but be
of your own pure accord that you encounter wild beasts day after day in the
midst of peaceful times. Although no longer any Regulus among you has raised a
cross as the instrument of his own crucifixion, yet a contempt of the fire has
even now displayed itself, since one of yourselves very lately has offered for a
wager to go to any place which may be fixed upon and put on the burning shirt.
If a woman once defiantly danced beneath the scourge, the same feat has been
very recently performed again by one of your own (circus-) hunters as he
traversed the 127

appointed course, not to mention the famous sufferings of the Spartans.

CHAP. XIX.--IF CHRISTIANS AND THE HEATHEN THUS RESEMBLE EACH OTHER, THERE
IS GREAT DIFFERENCE IN THE GROUNDS AND NATURE OF THEIR APPARENTLY SIMILAR
CONDUCT.

Here end, I suppose, your tremendous charges of obstinacy against the
Christians. Now, since we are amenable to them in common with yourselves, it
only remains that we compare the grounds which the respective parties have for
being personally derided. All our obstinacy, however, is with you a foregone
conclusion, based on our strong convictions; for we take for granted a
resurrection of the dead. Hope in this resurrection amounts to a contempt of
death. Ridicule, therefore, as much as you like the excessive stupidity of such
minds as die that they may live; but then, in order that you may be able to
laugh more merrily, and deride us with greater boldness, you must take your
sponge, or perhaps your tongue, and wipe away those records of yours every now
and then cropping out, which assert in not dissimilar terms that souls will
return to bodies. But how much more worthy of acceptance is our belief which
maintains that they will return to the same bodies! And how much more ridiculous
is your inherited conceit, that the human spirit is to reappear in a dog, or a
mule, or a peacock! Again, we affirm that a judgment has been ordained by God
according to the merits of every man. This you ascribe to Minos and
Rhadamanthus, while at the same time you reject Aristides, who was a juster
judge than either. By the award of the judgment, we say that the wicked will
have to spend an eternity in endless fire, the pious and innocent in a region of
bliss. In your view likewise an unalterable condition is ascribed to the
respective destinations of Pyriphlegethon and Elysium. Now they are not merely
your composers of myth and poetry who write songs of this strain; but your
philosophers also speak with all confidence of the return of souls to their
former state, and of the twofold award of a final judgment.

CHAP. XX.--TRUTH AND REALITY PERTAIN TO CHRISTIANS ALONE. THE HEATHEN
COUNSELLED TO EXAMINE AND EMBRACE IT.

How long therefore, O most unjust heathen, will you refuse to acknowledge us,
and (what is more) to execrate your own (worthies), since between us no
distinction has place, because we are one and the same? Since you do not (of
course) hate what you yourselves are, give us rather your right hands in
fellowship, unite your salutations, mingle your embraces, sanguinary with the
sanguinary, incestuous with the Incestuous, conspirators with conspirators,
obstinate and vain with those of the selfsame qualities. In company with each
other, we have been traitors to the majesty of the gods; and together do we
provoke their indignation. You too have your "third race;" not indeed third in
the way of religious rite, but a third race in sex, and, made up as it is of
male and female in one, it is more fitted to men and women (for offices of
lust). Well, then, do we offend you by the very fact of our approximation and
agreement? Being on a par is apt to furnish unconsciously the materials for
rivalry. Thus "a potter envies a potter, and a smith a smith." But we must now
discontinue this imaginary confession. Our conscience has returned to the truth,
and to the consistency of truth. For all those points which you allege (against
us) will be really found in ourselves alone; and we alone can rebut them,
against whom they are adduced, by getting you to listen to the other side of the
question, whence that full knowledge is learnt which both inspires counsel and
directs the judgment. Now it is in fact your own maxim, that no one should
determine a cause without hearing both sides of it; and it is only in our own
case that you neglect (the equitable principle). You indulge to the full that
fault of human nature, that those things which you do not disallow in yourselves
you condemn in others, or you boldly charge against others those things the
guilt of which you retain a lasting consciousness of in yourselves. The course
of life in which you will choose to occupy yourselves is different from ours:
whilst chaste in the eyes of others, you are 128

unchaste towards your own selves; whilst vigorous against vice out of doors,
you succumb to it at home. This is the injustice (which we have to suffer),
that, knowing truth, we are condemned by those who know it not; free from guilt,
we are judged by those who are implicated in it. Remove the mote, or rather the
beam, out of your own eye, that you may be able to extract the mote from the
eyes of others. Amend your own lives first, that you may be able to punish the
Christians. Only so far as you shall have effected your own reformation, will
you refuse to inflict punishment on them--nay, so far will you have become
Christians yourselves; and as you shall have become Christians, so far will you
have compassed your own amendment of life. Learn what that is which you accuse
in us, and you will accuse no longer; search out what that is which you do not
accuse in yourselves, and you will become self-accusers. From these very few and
humble remarks, so far as we have been able to open out the subject to you, you
will plainly get some insight into (your own) error, and some discovery of our
truth. Condemn that truth if you have the heart, but only after you have
examined it; and approve the error still, if you are so minded, only first
explore it. But if your prescribed rule is to love error and hate truth, why,
(let me ask,) do you not probe to a full discovery the objects both of your love
and your hatred?

AD NATIONES.

BOOK II.

CHAP. I.--THE HEATHEN GODS FROM HEATHEN AUTHORITIES. VARRO HAS WRITTEN A
WORK

ON THE SUBJECT. HIS THREEFOLD CLASSIFICATION. THE CHANGEABLE CHARACTER OF
THAT

WHICH OUGHT TO BE FIXED AND CERTAIN.

OUR defence requires that we should at this point discuss with you the
character of your gods, O ye heathen, fit objects of our pity, appealing even to
your own conscience to determine whether they be truly gods, as you would have
it supposed, or falsely, as you are unwilling to have proved. Now this is the
material part of human error, owing to the wiles of its author, that it is never
free from the ignorance of error, whence your guilt is all the greater. Your
eyes are open, yet they see not; your ears are unstopped, yet they hear not;
though your heart beats, it is yet dull, nor does your mind understand that of
which it is cognizant. If indeed the enormous perverseness (of your worship)
could be broken up by a single demurrer, we should have our objection ready to
hand in the declaration that, as we know all those gods of yours to have been
instituted by men, all belief in the true Deity is by this very circumstance
brought to nought; because, of course, nothing which some time or other had a
beginning can rightly seem to be divine. But the fact is, there are many things
by which tenderness of conscience is hardened into the callousness of wilful
error. Truth is beleaguered with the vast force (of the enemy), and yet how
secure she is in her own inherent strength! And naturally enough when from her
very adversaries she gains to her side whomsoever she will, as her friends and
protectors, and prostrates the entire host of her assailants. It is therefore
against these things that our contest lies--against the institutions of our
ancestors, against the authority of tradition, the laws of our governors, and
the reasonings of the wise; against antiquity, custom, submission;

against precedents, prodigies, miracles,--all which things have had their
part in consolidating that spurious system of your gods. Wishing, then, to
follow step by step your own commentaries which you have drawn out of your
theology of every sort (because the authority of learned men goes further with
you in matters of this kind than the testimony of facts), I have taken and
abridged the works of Varro; for he in his treatise Concerning Divine Things,
collected out of ancient digests, has shown himself a serviceable guide for us.
Now, if I inquire of him who were the subtle inventors of the gods, he points to
either the philosophers, the peoples, or the poets. For he has made a threefold
distinction in classifying the gods: one being the physical class, of which the
philosophers treat; another the mythic class, which is the constant burden of
the poets; the third, the gentile class, which the nations have adopted each one
for itself. When, therefore, the philosophers have ingeniously composed their
physical (theology) out of their 130

own conjectures, when the poets have drawn their mythical from fables, and
the (several) nations have forged their gentile (polytheism) according to their
own will, where in the world must truth be placed? In the conjectures? Well, but
these are only a doubtful conception. In the fables? But they are at best an
absurd story. In the popular accounts? This sort of opinion, however, is only
promiscuous and municipal. Now all things with the philosophers are uncertain,
because of their variation with the poets all is worthless, because immoral;
with the nations all is irregular and confused, because dependent on their mere
choice. The nature of God, however, if it be the true one with which you are
concerned, is of so definite a character as not to be derived from uncertain
speculations, nor contaminated with worthless fables, nor determined by
promiscuous conceits. It ought indeed to be regarded, as it really is, as
certain, entire, universal, because it is in truth the property of all. Now,
what god shall I believe? One that has been gauged by vague suspicion? One that
history has divulged? One that a community has invented? It would be a far
worthier thing if I believed no god, than one which is open to doubt, or full of
shame, or the object of arbitrary selection.

CHAP. II.--PHILOSOPHERS HAD NOT SUCCEEDED! IN DISCOVERING GOD. THE
UNCERTAINTY AND CONFUSION OF THEIR SPECULATIONS.

But the authority of the physical philosophers is maintained among you as the
special property. of wisdom. You mean of course, that pure and simple wisdom of
the philosophers which attests its own weakness mainly by that variety of
opinion which proceeds from an ignorance of the truth. Now what wise man is so
devoid of truth, as not to know that God is the Father and Lord of wisdom itself
and truth? Besides, there is that divine oracle uttered by Solomon: "The fear of
the Lord," says he," is the beginning of wisdom." But fear has its origin in
knowledge; for how will a man fear that of which he knows nothing? Therefore he
who shall have the fear of God, even if he be ignorant of all things else, if he
has attained to the knowledge and truth of God, will possess full and perfect
wisdom. This, however, is what philosophy has not clearly realized. For
although, in their inquisitive disposition to search into all kinds of learning,
the philosophers may seem to have investigated the sacred Scriptures themselves
for their antiquity, and to have derived thence some of their opinions; yet
because they have interpolated these deductions they prove that they have either
despised them wholly or have not fully believed them, for in other cases also
the simplicity of truth is shaken by the over-scrupulousness of an irregular
belief, and that they therefore changed them, as their desire of glory grew,
into products of their own mind. The consequence of this is, that even that
which they had discovered degenerated into uncertainty, and there arose from one
or two drops of truth a perfect flood of argumentation. For after they had
simply found God, they did not expound Him as they found Him, but rather
disputed about His quality, and His nature, and even about His abode. The
Platonists, indeed, (held) Him to care about wordly things, both as the disposer
and judge thereof. The Epicureans regarded Him as apathetic and inert, and (so
to say) a non-entity. The Stoics believed Him to be outside of the world; the
Platonists, within the world. The God whom they had so imperfectly admitted,
they could neither know nor fear; and therefore they could not be wise, since
they wandered away indeed from the beginning of wisdom," that is, "the fear of
God." Proofs are not wanting that among the philosophers there was not only an
ignorance, but actual doubt, about the divinity. Diogenes, when asked what was
taking place in heaven, answered by saying, "I have never been up there." Again,
whether there were any gods, he replied, "I do not know; only there ought to be
gods." When Croesus inquired of Thales of Miletus what he thought of the gods,
the latter having taken some time to consider, answered by the word "Nothing."
Even Socrates denied with an air of certainty those gods of yours. Yet he with a
like certainty requested that a cock should be sacrificed to AEsculapius. And
therefore when philosophy, in its practice of defining about God, is detected in
such uncertainty and inconsistency, 131

what "fear" could it possibly have had of Him whom it was not competent
clearly to determine? We have been taught to believe of the world that it is
god. For such the physical class of theologizers conclude it to be, since they
have handed down such views about the gods that Dionysius the Stoic divides them
into three kinds. The first, he supposes, includes those gods which are most
obvious, as the Sun, Moon, and Stars; the next, those which are not apparent, as
Neptune; the remaining one, those which are said to have passed from the human
state to the divine, as Hercules and Amphiaraus. In like manner, Arcesilaus
makes a threefold form of the divinity--the Olympian, the Astral, the
Titanian--sprung from Coelus and Terra; from which through Saturn and Ops came
Neptune, Jupiter, and Orcus, and their entire progeny. Xenocrates, of the
Academy, makes a twofold division--the Olympian and the Titanian, which descend
from Coelus and Terra. Most of the Egyptians believe that there are four
gods--the Sun and the Moon, the Heaven and the Earth. Along with all the
supernal fire Democritus conjectures that the gods arose. Zeno, too, will have
it that their nature resembles it. Whence Varro also makes fire to be the soul
of the world, that in the world fire governs all things, just as the soul does
in ourselves. But all this is most absurd. For he says, Whilst it is in us, we
have existence; but as soon as it has left us, we die. Therefore, when fire
quits the world in lightning, the world comes to its end.

CHAP. III.--THE PHYSICAL PHILOSOPHERS MAINTAINED THE DIVINITY OF THE
ELEMENTS; THE ABSURDITY OF THE TENET EXPOSED.

From these developments of opinion, we see that your physical class of
philosophers are driven to the necessity of contending that the elements are
gods, since it alleges that other gods are sprung from them; for it is only from
gods that gods could be born. Now, although we shall have to examine these other
gods more fully in the proper place, in the mythic section of the poets, yet,
inasmuch as we must meanwhile treat of them in their connection with the present
class, we shall probably even from their present class, when once we turn to the
gods themselves, succeed in showing that they can by no means appear to be gods
who are said to be sprung from the elements; so that we have at once a
presumption that the elements are not gods, since they which are born of the
elements are not gods. In like manner, whilst we show that the elements are not
gods, we shall, according to the law of natural relationship, get a presumptive
argument that they cannot rightly be maintained to be gods whose parents (in
this case the elements) are not gods. It is a settled point that a god is born
of a god, and that what lacks divinity is born of what is not divine. Now, so
far as the world of which your philosophers treat (for I apply this term to the
universe in the most comprehensive sense) contains the elements, ministering to
them as its component parts (for whatever its own condition may be, the same of
course will be that of its elements and constituent portions), it must needs
have been formed either by some being, according to the enlightened view of
Plato, or else by none, according to the harsh opinion of Epicurus; and since it
was formed, by having a beginning, it must also have an end. That, therefore,
which at one time before its beginning had no existence, and will by and by
after its end cease to have an existence, cannot of course, by any possibility,
seem to be a god, wanting as it does that essential character of divinity,
eternity,which is reckoned to be without beginning, and without end. If,
however, it is in no wise formed, and therefore ought to be accounted
divine--since, as divine, it is subject neither to a beginning nor an end of
itself--how is it that some assign generation to the elements, which they hold
to be gods, when the Stoics deny that anything can be born of a god? Likewise,
how is it that they wish those beings, whom they suppose to be born of the
elements, to be regarded as gods, when they deny that a god can be born? Now,
what must hold good of the universe will have to be predicated of the elements,
I mean of heaven, and of earth, and of the stars, and of fire, which Varro has
vainly proposed that you should believe to be gods, and the parents of gods,
contrary to that generation and nativity which he had declared to be impossible
in a god. Now this same Varro had shown that the earth and the 132

stars were animated. But if this be the case, they must needs be also mortal,
according to the condition of animated nature; for although the soul is
evidently immortal, this attribute is limited to it alone: it is not extended to
that with which it is associated, that is, the body. Nobody, however, will deny
that the elements have body, since we both touch them and are touched by them,
and we see certain bodies fall down from them. If, therefore, they are animated,
laying aside the principle of a soul, as befits their condition as bodies, they
are mortal--of course not immortal. And yet whence is it that the elements
appear to Varro to be animated? Because, forsooth, the elements have motion. And
then, in order to anticipate what may be objected on the other side, that many
things else have motion--as wheels, as carriages, as several other machines--he
volunteers the statement that he believes only such things to be animated as
move of themselves, without any apparent mover or impeller from without, like
the apparent mover of the wheel, or propeller of the carriage, or director of
the machine. If, then, they are not animated, they have no motion of themselves.
Now, when he thus alleges a power which is not apparent, he points to what it
was his duty to seek after, even the creator and controller of the motion for it
does not at once follow that, because we do not see a thing, we believe that it
does not exist. Rather, it is necessary the more profoundly to investigate what
one does not see, in order the better to understand the character of that which
is apparent. Besides if (you admit) only the existence of those things which
appear and are supposed to exist simply because they appear, how is it that you
also admit them to be gods which do not appear? If, moreover, those things seem
to have existence which have none, why may they not have existence also which do
not seem to have it? Such, for instance, as the Mover of the heavenly beings.
Granted, then, that things are animated because they move of themselves, and
that they move of themselves when they are not moved by another: still it does
not follow that they must straightway be gods, because they are animated, nor
even because they move of themselves; else what is to prevent all animals
whatever being accounted gods, moving as they do of themselves? This, to be
sure, is allowed to the Egyptians, but their superstitious vanity has another
basis.

CHAP. IV.--WRONG DERIVATION OF THE WORD Qeos. THE NAME INDICATIVE
OF THE TRUE DEITY. GOD WITHOUT SHAPE AND IMMATERIAL. ANECDOTE OF
THALES.

Some affirm that the gods (i.e. qeoi) were so called because the verbs
qeein and seisqai signify to run and to be moved. This term, then,
is not indicative of any majesty, for it is derived from running and motion, not
from any dominion of godhead. But inasmuch as the Supreme God whom we worship is
also designated Qeos, without however the appearance of any course or
motion in Him, because He is not visible to any one, it is clear that that word
must have had some other derivation, and that the property of divinity, innate
in Himself, must have been discovered. Dismissing, then, that ingenious
interpretation, it is more likely that the gods were not called qeoi from
running and motion, but that the term was borrowed from the designation of the
true God; so that you gave the name qeoi to the gods, whom you had in
like manner forged for yourselves. Now, that this is the case, a plain proof is
afforded in the fact that you actually give the common appellation qeoi
to all those gods of yours, in whom there is no attribute of course or motion
indicated.

When, therefore, you call them both qeoi and immoveable with equal
readiness, there is a deviation as well from the meaning of the word as from the
idea of godhead, which is set aside if measured by the notion of course and
motion. But if that sacred name be peculiarly significant of deity, and be
simply true and not of a forced interpretation in the case of the true God, but
transferred in a borrowed sense to those other objects which you choose to call
gods, then you ought to show to us that there is also a community of character
between them, so that their common designation may rightly depend on their union
of essence. But the true God, on the sole ground that He is not an object of
sense, is incapable of being compared with those false deities which are
cognizable to sight and sense (to sense indeed is sufficient); for this amounts
to a clear statement of the difference between an obscure proof and a manifest
one. Now, since the elements are obvious to all, (and) since God, on the
contrary, is visible to none, how will it be in your power from that part 133

which you have not seen to pass to a decision on the objects which you see?
Since, therefore, you have not to combine them in your perception or your
reason, why do you combine them in name with the purpose of combining them also
in power? For see how even Zeno separates the matter of the world from God: he
says that the latter has percolated through the former, like honey through the
comb. God, therefore, and Matter are two words (and) two things. Proportioned to
the difference of the words is the diversity of the things; the condition also
of matter follows its designation. Now if matter is not God, because its very
appellation teaches us so, how can those things which are inherent in
matter--that is, the elements--be regarded as gods, since the component members
cannot possibly be heterogeneous from the body? But what concern have I with
physiological conceits? It were better for one's mind to ascend above the state
of the world, not to stoop down to uncertain speculations. Plato's form for the
world was round. Its square, angular shape, such as others had conceived it to
be, he rounded off, I suppose, with compasses, from his labouring to have it
believed to be simply without a beginning. Epicurus, however, who had said,
"What is above us is nothing to us," wished notwithstanding to have a peep at
the sky, and found the sun to be a foot in diameter. Thus far you must confess
men were niggardly in even celestial objects. In process of time their ambitious
conceptions advanced, and so the sun too enlarged its disk. Accordingly, the
Peripatetics marked it out as a larger world. Now, pray tell me, what wisdom is
there in this hankering after conjectural speculations? What proof is afforded
to us, notwithstanding the strong confidence of its assertions, by the useless
affectation of a scrupulous curiosity, which is tricked out with an artful show
of language? It therefore served Thales of Miletus quite right, when,
star-gazing as he walked with all the eyes he had, he had the mortification of
falling into a well, and was unmercifully twitted by an Egyptian, who said to
him, "Is it because you found nothing on earth to look at, that you think you
ought to confine your gaze to the sky?" His fall, therefore, is a figurative
picture of the philosophers; of those, I mean, who persist in applying their
studies to a vain purpose, since they indulge a stupid curiosity on natural
objects, which they ought rather (intelligently to direct) to their Creator and
Governor.

CHAP. V.--THE PHYSICAL THEORY CONTINUED. FURTHER REASONSADVANCED
AGAINST THE DIVINITY OF THE ELEMENTS.

Why, then, do we not resort to that far more reasonable opinion, which has
clear proof of being derived from men's common sense and unsophisticated
deduction? Even Varro bears it in mind, when he says that the elements are
supposed to be divine, because nothing whatever is capable, without their
concurrence, of being produced, nourished, or applied to the sustenance of man's
life and of the earth, since not even our bodies and souls could have sufficed
in themselves without the modification of the elements. By this it is that the
world is made generally habitable,--a result which is harmoniously secured by
the distribution into zones, except where human residence has been rendered
impracticable by intensity of cold or heat. On this account, men have accounted
as gods--the sun, because it imparts from itself the light of day, ripens the
fruit with its warmth, and measures the year with its stated periods; the moon,
which is at once the solace of the night and the controller of the months by its
governance; the stars also, certain indications as they are of those seasons
which are to be observed in the tillage of our fields; lastly, the very heaven
also under which, and the earth over which, as well as the intermediate space
within which, all things conspire together for the good of man. Nor is it from
their beneficent influences only that a faith in their divinity has been deemed
compatible with the elements, but from their opposite qualities also, such as
usually happen from what one might call their wrath and anger--as thunder, and
hail, and drought, and pestilential winds, floods also, and openings of the
ground, and earthquakes: these are all fairly enough accounted gods, whether
their nature becomes the object of reverence as being favourable, or of fear
because terrible--the sovereign dispenser, in fact, both of help and of hurt.

But in the practical conduct of 134

social life, this is the way in which men act and feel: they do not show
gratitude or find fault with the very things from which the succour or the
injury proceeds, so much as with them by whose strength and power the operation
of the things is effected. For even in your amusements you do not award the
crown as a prize to the flute or the harp, but to the musician who manages the
said flute or harp by the power of his delightful skill. In like manner, when
one is in ill-health, you do not bestow your acknowledgments on the flannel
wraps, or the medicines, or the poultices, but on the doctors by whose care and
prudence the remedies become effectual. So again, in untoward events, they who
are wounded with the sword do not charge the injury on the sword or the spear,
but on the enemy or the robber; whilst those whom a falling house covers do not
blame the tiles or the stones, but the oldness of the building; as again
shipwrecked sailors impute their calamity not to the rocks and waves, but to the
tempest. And rightly too; for it is certain that everything which happens must
be ascribed not to the instrument with which, but to the agent by whom, it takes
place; inasmuch as he is the prime cause of the occurrence, who appoints both
the event itself and that by whose instrumentality it comes to pass (as there
are in all things these three particular elements--the fact itself, its
instrument, and its cause), because he himself who wills the occurrence of a
thing comes into notice prior to the thing which he wills, or the instrument by
which it occurs. On all other occasions therefore, your conduct is right enough,
because you consider the author; but in physical phenomena your rule is opposed
to that natural principle which prompts you to a wise judgment in all other
cases, removing out of sight as you do the supreme position of the author, and
considering rather the things that happen, than him by whom they happen. Thus it
comes to pass that you suppose the power and the dominion to belong to the
elements, which are but the slaves and functionaries. Now do we not, in thus
tracing out an artificer and master within, expose the artful structure of their
slavery out of the appointed functions of those elements to which you ascribe
(the attributes) of power? But gods are not slaves; therefore whatever things
are servile in character are not gods. Otherwise they should prove to us that,
according to the ordinary course of things, liberty is promoted by irregular
licence, despotism by liberty, and that by despotism divine power is meant. For
if all the (heavenly bodies) overhead forget not to fulfil their courses in
certain orbits, in regular seasons, at proper distances, and at equal
intervals--appointed in the way of a law for the revolutions of time, and for
directing the guidance thereof--can it fail to result from the very observance
of their conditions and the fidelity of their operations, that you will be
convinced both by the recurrence of their orbital courses and the accuracy of
their mutations, when you bear in mind how ceaseless is their recurrence, that a
governing power presides over them, to which the entire management of the world
is obedient, reaching even to the utility and injury of the human race? For you
cannot pretend that these (phenomena) act and care for themselves alone, without
contributing anything to the advantage of mankind, when you maintain that the
elements are divine for no other reason than that you experience from them
either benefit or injury to yourself. For if they benefit themselves only, you
are under no obligation to them.

CHAP. VI.--THE CHANGES OF THE HEAVENLY BODIES, PROOF THATTHEY ARE
NOT DIVINE. TRANSITION FROM THE PHYSICAL TO THE MYTHIC CLASS OF GODS.

Come now, do you allow that the Divine Being not only has nothing servile in
His course, but exists in unimpaired integrity, and ought not to be diminished,
or suspended, or destroyed? Well, then, all His blessedness would disappear, if
He were ever subject to change. Look, however, at the stellar bodies; they both
undergo change, and give clear evidence of the fact. The moon tells us how great
has been its loss, as it recovers its full form; its greater losses you are
already accustomed to measure in a mirror of water; so that I need not any
longer believe in anywise what magians have asserted. The sun, too, is
frequently put to the trial of an eclipse. Explain as best you may the modes of
these celestial casualties, it is impossible for God 135

either to become less or to cease to exist. Vain, therefore, are those
supports of human learning, which, by their artful method of weaving
conjectures, belie both wisdom and truth. Besides, it so happens, indeed,
according to your natural way of thinking, that he who has spoken the best is
supposed to have spoken most truly, instead of him who has spoken the truth
being held to have spoken the best. Now the man who shall carefully look into
things, will surely allow it to be a greater probability that those

elements which we have been discussing are under some rule and direction,
than that they have a motion of their own, and that being under government they
cannot be gods. If, however, one is in error in this matter, it is better to err
simply than speculatively, like your physical philosophers. But, at the same
time, if you consider the character of the mythic school, (and compare it with
the physical,) the error which we have already seen frail men

making in the latter is really the more respectable one, since it ascribes a
divine nature to those things which it supposes to be superhuman in their
sensibility, whether in respect of their position, their power, their magnitude,
or their divinity. For that which you suppose to be higher than man, you believe
to be very near to God.

CHAP. VII.--THE GODS OF THE MYTHIC CLASS. THE POETS A VERY POOR AUTHORITY
IN SUCH MATTERS. HOMER AND THE MYTHICPOETS. WHY IRRELIGIOUS.

But to pass to the mythic class of gods, which we attributed to the poets, I
hardly know whether I must only seek to put them on a par with our own human
mediocrity, or whether they must be affirmed to be gods, with proofs of
divinity, like the African Mopsus and the Boeotian Amphiaraus. I must now indeed
but slightly touch on this class, of which a fuller view will be taken in the
proper place. Meanwhile, that these were only human beings, is clear from the
fact that you do not consistently call them gods, but heroes. Why then discuss
the point? Although divine honours had to be ascribed to dead men, it was not to
them as such, of course. Look at your own practice, when with similar excess of
presumption you sully heaven with the sepulchres of your kings: is it not such
as are illustrious for justice, virtue, piety, and every excellence of this
sort, that you honour with the blessedness of deification, contented even to
incur contempt if you forswear yourselves for such characters? And, on the other
hand, do you not deprive the impious and disgraceful of even the old prizes of
human glory, tear up their decrees and titles, pull down their statues, and
deface their images on the current coin? Will He, however, who beholds all
things, who approves, nay, rewards the good, prostitute before all men the
attribute of His own inexhaustible grace and mercy? And shall men be allowed an
especial mount of care and righteousness, that they may be wise in selecting and
multiplying their deities? Shall attendants on kings and princes be more pure
than those who wait on the Supreme God? You turn your back in horror, indeed, on
outcasts and exiles, on the poor and weak, on the obscurely born and the
low-lived; but yet you honour, even by legal sanctions,

unchaste men, adulterers, robbers, and parricides. Must we regard it as a
subject of ridicule or indignation, that such characters are believed to be gods
who are not fit to be men? Then, again, in this mythic class of yours which the
poets celebrate, how uncertain is your conduct as to purity of conscience and
the maintenance thereof! For whenever we hold up to execration the wretched,
disgraceful and atrocious (examples) of your gods, you defend them as mere
fables, on the pretence of poetic licence; whenever we volunteer a silent
contempt of this said poetic licence, then you are not only troubled with no
horror of it, but you go so far as to show it respect, and to hold it as one of
the indispensable (fine) arts; nay, you carry out the studies of your higher
classes by its means, as the very foundation of your literature. Plato was of
opinion that poets ought to be banished, as calumniators of the gods; he would
even have) Homer himself expelled from his republic, although, as you are aware,
he was the crowned head of them all. But 136

while you admit and retain them thus, why should you not believe them when
they disclose such things respecting your gods? And if you do believe your
poets, how is it that you worship such gods (as they describe)? you worship them
simply because you do not believe the poets, why do you bestow praise on such
lying authors, without any fear of giving offence to those whose calumniators
you honour? A regard for truth is not, of course, to be expected of poets. But
when you say that they only make men into gods after their death, do you not
admit that before death the said gods were merely human? Now what is there
strange in the fact, that they who were once men are subject to the dishonour of
human casualties, or crimes, or fables? Do you not, in fact, put faith in your
poets, when it is in accordance with their rhapsodies that you have arranged in
some instances your very rituals? How is it that the priestess of Ceres is
ravished, if it is not because Ceres suffered a similar outrage? Why are the
children of others sacrificed to Saturn, if it is not because he spared not his
own? Why is a male mutilated in honour of the Idaean goddess Cybele, unless it
be that the (unhappy) youth who was too disdainful of her advances was
castrated, owing to her vexation at his daring to cross her love? Why was not
Hercules "a dainty dish" to the good ladies of Lanuvium, if it was not for the
primeval offence which women gave to him? The poets, no doubt, are liars. Yet it
is not because of their telling us that your gods did such things when they were
human beings, nor because they predicated divine scandals of a divine state,
since it seemed to you more credible that gods should exist, though not of such
a character, than that there should be such characters, although not gods.

CHAP. VIII.--THE GODS OF THE DIFFERENT NATIONS. VARRO'S GENTILE CLASS.
THEIR INFERIORITY. A GOOD DEAL OF THISPERVERSE THEOLOGY TAKEN FROM
SCRIPTURE. SERAPIS A PERVERSION OF JOSEPH.

There remains the gentile class of gods amongst the several nations: these
were adopted out of mere caprice, not from the knowledge of the truth; and our
information about them comes from the private notions of different races. God, I
imagine, is everywhere known, everywhere present, powerful everywhere--an object
whom all ought to worship, all ought to serve. Since, then, it happens that even
they, whom all the world worships in common, fail in the evidence of their true
divinity, how much more must this befall those whom their very votaries have not
succeeded in discovering! For what useful authority could possibly precede a
theology of so defective a character as to be wholly unknown to fame? How many
have either seen or heard of the Syrian Atargatis, the African Coelestis, the
Moorish Varsutina, the Arabian Obodas and Dusaris, or the Norican Belenus, or
those whom Varro mentions--Deluentinus of Casinum, Visidianus of Narnia,
Numiternus of Atina, or Ancharia of Asculum? And who have any clear notions of
Nortia of Vulsinii? There is no difference in the worth of even their names,
apart from the human surnames which distinguish them. I laugh often enough at
the little coteries of gods in each municipality, which have their honours
confined within their own city walls. To what lengths this licence of adopting
gods has been pushed, the superstitious practices of the Egyptians show us; for
they worship even their native animals, such as cats, crocodiles, and their
snake. It is therefore a small matter that they have also deified a man--him, I
mean, whom not Egypt only, or Greece, but the whole world worships, and the
Africans swear by; about whose state also all that helps our conjectures and
imparts to our knowledge the semblance of truth is stated in our own (sacred)
literature. For that Serapis of yours was originally one of our own saints
called Joseph. The youngest of his brethren, but superior to them in intellect,
he was from envy sold into Egypt, and became a slave in the family of Pharaoh
king of the country. Importuned by the unchaste queen, when he refused to comply
with her desire, she turned upon him and reported him to the king, by whom he is
put into prison. There he displays the power of his divine inspiration, by
interpreting aright the dreams of some (fellow-prisoners). Meanwhile the king,
too, has some terrible dreams. Joseph being brought 137

before him, according to his summons, was able to expound them. Having
narrated the proofs of true interpretation which he had given in the prison, he
opens out his dream to the king: those seven fat-fleshed and well-favoured kine
signified as many years of plenty; in like manner, the seven lean-fleshed
animals predicted the scarcity of the seven following years. He accordingly
recommends precautions to be taken against the future famine from the previous
plenty. The king believed him. The issue of all that happened showed how wise he
was, how invariably holy, and now how necessary. So Pharaoh set him over all
Egypt, that he might secure the provision of corn for it, and thenceforth
administer its government. They called him Serapis, from the turban which
adorned his head. The peck-like shape of this turban marks the memory of his
corn-provisioning; whilst evidence is given that the care of the supplies was
all on his head, by the very ears of corn which embellish the border of the
head-dress. For the same reason, also, they made the sacred figure of a dog,
which they regard (as a sentry) in Hades, and put it under his right hand,
because the care of the Egyptians was concentrated s under his hand. And they
put at his side Pharia, whose name shows her to have been the king's daughter.
For in addition to all the rest of his kind gifts and rewards, Pharaoh had given
him his own daughter in marriage. Since, however, they had begun to worship both
wild animals and human beings, they combined both figures under one form Anubis,
in which there may rather be seen clear proofs of its own character and
condition enshrined by a nation at war with itself, refractory to its kings,
despised among foreigners, with even the appetite of a slave and the filthy
nature of a dog.

Such are the more obvious or more remarkable points which we had to mention
in connection with Varro's threefold distribution of the gods, in order that a
sufficient answer might seem to be given touching the physical, the poetic, and
the gentile classes. Since, however, it is no longer to the philosophers, nor
the poets, nor the nations that we owe the substitution of all (heathen worship
for the true religion) although they transmitted the superstition, but to the
dominant Romans, who received the tradition and gave it wide authority, another
phase of the widespread error of man must now be encountered by us; nay, another
forest must be felled by our axe, which has obscured the childhood of the de
generate worship with germs of superstitions gathered from all quarters. Well,
but even the gods of the Romans have received from (the same) Varro a threefold
classification into the certain, the uncertain, and the select. What absurdity!
What need had they of uncertain gods, when they possessed certain ones? Unless,
forsooth, they wished to commit themselves to such folly as the Athenians did;
for at Athens there was an altar with this inscription: "To THE UNKNOWN GODS."
Does, then, a man worship that which he knows nothing of? Then, again, as they
had certain gods, they ought to have been contented with them, without requiring
select ones. In this want they are even found to be irreligious! For if gods are
selected as onions are, then such as are not chosen are declared to be
worthless. Now we on our part allow that the Romans had two sets of gods, common
and proper; in other words, those which they had in common with other nations,
and those which they themselves devised. And were not these called the public
and the foreign gods? Their altars tell us so; there is (a specimen) of the
foreign gods at the lane of Carna, of the public gods in the Palatium. Now,
since their common gods are comprehended in both the physical and the mythic
classes, we have already said enough concerning them. I should like to speak of
their particular kinds of deity. We ought then to admire the Romans for that
third set of the gods of their enemies, because no other nation ever discovered
for itself so large a mass of superstition. Their other deities we arrange in
two classes: those which have become gods from human beings, and those which
have had their origin in some other way. Now, since there is advanced the same
colourable pretext for the deification of the dead, that their lives were
meritorious, we are compelled to urge the same reply against them, that no one
of them was worth so much 138

pains. Their fond father Aeneas, in whom they believed, was never glorious,
and was felled with a stone--a vulgar weapon, to pelt a dog withal, inflicting a
wound no less ignoble! But this Aeneas turns out a traitor to his country; yes,
quite as much as Antenor. And if they will not believe this to be true of him,
he at any rate deserted his companions when his country was in flames, and must
be held inferior to that woman of Carthage, who, when her husband Hasdrubal
supplicated the enemy with the mild pusillanimity of our Aeneas, refused to
accompany him, but hurrying her children along with her, disdained to take her
beautiful self and father's noble heart s into exile, but plunged into the
flames of the burning Carthage, as if rushing into the embraces of her (dear
but) ruined country. Is he "pious Aeneas" for (rescuing) his young only son and
decrepid old father, but deserting Priam and Astyanax? But the Romans ought
rather to detest him; for in defence of their princes and their royal house,
they surrender even children and wives, and every dearest pledge. They deify the
son of Venus, and this with the full knowledge and consent of her husband
Vulcan, and without opposition from even Juno. Now, if sons have seats in heaven
owing to their piety to their parents, why are not those noble youths of Argos
rather accounted gods, because they, to save their mother from guilt in the
performance of some sacred rites, with a devotion more than human, yoked
themselves to her car and dragged her to the temple? Why not make a goddess, for
her exceeding piety, of that daughter who from her own breasts nourished her
father who was famishing in prison? What other glorious achievement can be
related of Aeneas, but that he was nowhere seen in the fight on the field of
Laurentum? Following his bent, perhaps he fled a second time as a fugitive from
the battle. In like manner, Romulus posthumously becomes a god. Was it because
he rounded the city? Then why not others also, who have built cities, counting
even women? To be sure, Romulus slew his brother in the bargain, and trickishly
ravished some foreign virgins. Therefore of course he becomes a god, and
therefore a Quirinus ("god of the spear"), because then their fathers had to use
the spear on his account. What did Sterculus do to merit deification?

If he worked hard to enrich the fields stercoribus, (with manure,) Augias had
more dung than he to bestow on them. If Faunus, the son of Picus, used to do
violence to law and right, because struck with madness, it was more fit that he
should be doctored than deified. If the daughter of Faunus so excelled in
chastity, that she would hold no conversation with men, it was perhaps from
rudeness, or a consciousness of deformity, or shame for her father's insanity.
How much worthier of divine honour than this "good goddess" was Penelope, who,
although dwelling among so many suitors of the vilest character, preserved with
delicate tact the purity which they assailed! There is Sanctus, too, who for his
hospitality had a temple consecrated to him by king Plotius; and even Ulysses
had it in his power to have bestowed one more god upon you in the person of the
most refined Alcinous.

CHAP. X.--A DISGRACEFUL FEATURE OF THE ROMAN MYTHOLOGY. IT HONOURS SUCH
INFAMOUS CHARACTERS AS LARENTINA.

I hasten to even more abominable cases. Your writers have not been ashamed to
publish that of Larentina. She was a hired prostitute, whether as the nurse of
Romulus, and therefore called Lupa, because she was a prostitute, or as the
mistress of Hercules, now deceased, that is to say, now deified. They relate
that his temple-warder happened to be playing at dice in the temple alone; and
in order to represent a partner for himself in the game, in the absence of an
actual one, he began to play with one hand for Hercules and the other for
himself. (The condition was,) that if he won the stakes from Hercules, he should
with them procure a supper and a prostitute; if Hercules, however, proved the
winner, I mean his other hand, then he should provide the same for Hercules. The
hand of Hercules won. That achievement might well have been added to his twelve
labours! The temple-warden buys a supper for the hero, and hires Larentina to
play the whore. The fire which dissolved the 139

body of even a Hercules enjoyed the supper, and the altar consumed
everything. Larentina sleeps alone in the temple; and she a woman from the
brothel, boasts that in her dreams she had submitted herself to the pleasure of
Hercules; and she might possibly have experienced this, as it passed through her
mind, in her sleep. In the morning, on going out of the temple very early, she
is solicited by a young man--"a third Hercules," so to speak. He invites her
home. She complies, remembering that Hercules had told her that it would be for
her advantage. He then, to be sure, obtains permission that they should be
united in lawful wedlock (for none was allowed to have intercourse with the
concubine of a god without being punished for it); the husband makes her his
heir. By and by, just before her death, she bequeathed to the Roman people the
rather large estate which she had obtained through Hercules. After this she
sought deification for her daughters too, whom indeed the divine Larentina ought
to have appointed her heirs also. The gods, of the Romans received an accession
in her dignity. For she alone of all the wives of Hercules was dear to him,
because she alone was rich; and she was even far more fortunate than Ceres, who
contributed to the pleasure of the (king of the) dead. After so many examples
and eminent names among you, who might not have been declared divine? Who, in
fact, ever raised a question as to his divinity against Antinous? Was even
Ganymede more grateful and dear than he to (the supreme god) who loved him?
According to you, heaven is open to the dead. You prepare a way from Hades to
the stars. Prostitutes mount it in all directions, so that you must not suppose
that you are conferring a great distinction upon your kings.

CHAP. XI.--THE ROMANS PROVIDED GODS FOR BIRTH, NAY, EVEN BEFORE BIRTH, TO
DEATH. MUCH INDELICACY IN THIS SYSTEM,

And you are not content to assert the divinity of such as were once known to
you, whom you heard and handled, and whose portraits have been painted, and
actions recounted, and memory retained amongst you; but men insist upon
consecrating with a heavenly life I know not what incorporeal, inanimate
shadows, and the mere names of things--dividing man's entire existence amongst
separate powers even from his conception in the womb: so that there is a god
Consevius, to preside over concubital generation; and Fluviona, to preserve the
(growth of the) infant in the womb; after these come Vitumnus and Sentinus,
through whom the babe begins to have life and its earliest sensation; then
Diespiter, by whose office the child accomplishes its birth. But when women
begin their parturition, Candelifera also comes in aid, since childbearing
requires the light of the candle; and other goddesses there are "who get their
names from the parts they bear in the stages of travail. There were two
Carmentas likewise, according to the general view: to one of them, called
Postverta, belonged the function of assisting the birth of the introverted
child; while the other, Prosa, executed the like office for the rightly born.
The god Farinus was so called from (his inspiring) the first utterance; while
others believed in Locutius from his gift of speech. Cunina is present as the
protector of the child's deep slumber, and supplies to it refreshing rest. To
lift them (when fallen) there is Levana, and along with her Rumina. It is a
wonderful oversight that no gods were appointed for cleaning up the filth of
children. Then, to preside over their first pap and earliest drink you have
Potina and Edula; to teach the child to stand erect is the work of Statina,
whilst Adeona helps him to come to dear Mramma, and Abeona to toddle off again;
then there is Domiduca, (to bring home the bride;) and the goddess Mens, to
influence the mind to either good or evil. They have likewise Volumnus and
Voleta, to control the will; Paventina, (the goddess) of fear; Venilia, of hope;
Volupia, of pleasure; Praestitia, of beauty. Then, again, they give his name to
Peragenor, from his teaching men to go through their work; to Consus, from his
sug 140

gesting to them counsel. Juventa is their guide on assuming the manly gown,
and "bearded Fortune" when they come to full manhood. If I must touch on their
nuptial duties, there is Afterenda whose appointed function is to see to the
offering of the dower; but fie on you! you have your Mutunus and Tutunus and
Pertunda and Subigus and the goddess Prema and likewise Perfica. O spare
yourselves, ye impudent gods! No one is present at the secret struggles of
married life. Those very few persons who have a wish that way, go away and blush
for very shame in the midst of their joy.

CHAP. XII.--THE ORIGINAL DEITIES WERE HUMAN--WITH SOME VERY QUESTIONABLE
CHARACTERISTICS. SATURN OR TIME WAS HUMAN. INCONSISTENCIES OF OPINION ABOUT
HIM.

Now, how much further need I go in recounting your gods--because I want to
descant on the character of such as you have adopted? It is quite uncertain
whether I shall laugh at your absurdity, or upbraid you for your blindness. For
how many, and indeed what, gods shall I bring forward? Shall it be the greater
ones, or the lesser? The old ones, or the novel? The male, or the female? The
unmarried, or such as are joined in wedlock? The clever, or the unskilful? The
rustic or the town ones? The national or the foreign? For the truth is, there
are so many families, so many nations, which require a catalogue (of gods), that
they cannot possibly be examined, or distinguished, or described. But the more
diffuse the subject is, the more restriction must we impose on it. As,
therefore, in this review we keep before us but one object--that of proving that
all these gods were once human beings (not, indeed, to instruct you in the fact,
for your conduct shows that you have forgotten it)--let us adopt our compendious
summary from the most natural method of conducting the examination, even by
considering the origin of their race. For the origin characterizes all that
comes after it. Now this origin of your gods dates, I suppose, from Saturn. And
when Varro mentions Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, as the most ancient of the gods,
it ought not to have escaped our notice, that every father is more ancient than
his sons, and that Saturn therefore must precede Jupiter, even as Coelus does
Saturn, for Saturn was sprung from Coelus and Terra. I pass by, however, the
origin of Coelus and Terra. They led in some unaccountable way single lives, and
had no children. Of course they required a long time for vigorous growth to
attain to such a stature. By and by, as soon as the voice of Coelus began to
break, and the breasts of Terra to become firm, they contract marriage with one
another. I suppose either Heaven came down to his spouse, or Earth went up to
meet her lord. Be that as it may, Earth conceived seed of Heaven, and when her
year was fulfilled brought forth Saturn in a wonderful manner. Which of his
parents did he resemble? Well, then, even after parentage began, it is certain
that they had no child previous to Saturn, and only one daughter
afterwards--Ops; thenceforth they ceased to procreate. The truth is, Saturn
castrated Coelus as he was sleeping. We read this name Coelus as of the
masculine gender. And for the matter of that, how could he be a father unless he
were a male? But with what instrument was the castration effected? He had a
scythe. What, so early as that? For Vulcan was not yet an artificer in iron. The
widowed Tetra, however, although still quite young, was in no hurry to marry
another. Indeed, there was no second Coeus for her. What but Ocean offers her an
embrace? But he savours of brackishness, and she has been accustomed to fresh
water. And so Saturn is the sole male child of Coelus and Tetra. When grown to
puberty, he marries his own sister. No laws as yet prohibited incest, nor
punished parricide. Then, when male children were born to him, he would devour
them; better himself (should take them) than the wolves, (for to these would
they become a prey) if he exposed them. He was, no doubt, afraid that one of
them might learn the lesson of his father's scythe. When Jupiter was born in
course of time, he was removed out of the way: (the father) swallowed a stone
instead of the son, as was pretended. This artifice secured his safety for a
time; but at length the son, whom 141

he had not devoured, and who had grown up in secret, fell upon him, and
deprived him of his kingdom. Such, then, is the patriarch of the gods whom
Heaven and Earth produced for you, with the poets officiating as midwives. Now
some persons with a refined imagination are of opinion that, by this allegorical
fable of Saturn, there is a physiological representation of Time: (they think)
that it is because all things are destroyed by Time, that Coelus and Tetra were
themselves parents without having any of their own, and that the (fatal) scythe
was used, and that (Saturn) devoured his own offspring, because he, in fact,
absorbs within himself all things which have issued from him. They call in also
the witness of his name; for they say that he is called Kronos in Greek,
meaning the same thing as kronos. His Latin name also they derive from
seed-sowing; for they suppose him to have been the actual procreator--that the
seed, in fact, was dropt down from heaven to earth by his means. They unite him
with Ops, because seeds produce the affluent treasure (Opem) of actual life, and
because they develope with labour (Opus). Now I wish that you would explain this
metaphorical statement. It was either Saturn or Time. If it was Time, how could
it be Saturn? If he, how could it be Time? For you cannot possibly reckon both
these corporeal subjects as co-existing in one person. What, however, was there
to prevent your worshipping Time under its proper quality? Why not make a human
person, or even a mythic man, an object of your adoration, but each in its
proper nature not in the character of Time? What is the meaning of that conceit
of your mental ingenuity, if it be not to colour the foulest matters with the
feigned appearance of reasonable proofs? Neither, on the one hand, do you mean
Saturn to be Time, because you say he is a human being; nor, on the other hand,
whilst portraying him as Time, do you on that account mean that he was ever
human. No doubt, in the accounts of remote antiquity your god Saturn is plainly
described as living on earth in human guise. Anything whatever may obviously be
pictured as incorporeal which never had an existence; there is simply no room
for such fiction, where there is reality. Since, therefore, there is clear
evidence that Saturn once existed, it is in vain that you change his character.
He whom you will not deny to have once been man, is not at your disposal to be
treated anyhow, nor can it be maintained that he is either divine or Time. In
every page of your literature the origin of Saturn is conspicuous. We read of
him in Cassius Severus and in the Corneliuses, Nepes and Tacitus, and, amongst
the Greeks also, in Diodorus, and all other compilers of ancient annals. No more
faithful records of him are to be traced than in Italy itself. For, after
(traversing) many countries, and (enjoying) the hospitality of Athens, he
settled in Italy, or, as it was called, OEnotria, having met with a kind welcome
from Janus, or Janes, as the Salii call him. The hill on which he settled had
the name Saturnius, whilst the city which he rounded still bears the name
Saturnia; in short, the whole of Italy once had the same designation. Such is
the testimony derived from that country which is now the mistress of the world:
whatever doubt prevails about the origin of Saturn, his actions tell us plainly
that he was a human being. Since, therefore, Saturn was human, he came
undoubtedly from a human stock; and more, because he was a man, he, of course,
came not of Coelus and Terra. Some people, however, found it easy enough to call
him, whose parents were unknown, the son of those gods from whom all may in a
sense seem to be derived. For who is there that does not speak under a feeling
of reverence of the heaven and the earth as his own father and mother? Or, in
accordance with a custom amongst men, which induces them to say of any who are
unknown or suddenly apparent, that "they came from the sky?" Hence it happened
that, because a stranger appeared suddenly everywhere, it became the custom to
call him a heaven-born man,--just as we also commonly call earth-born all those
whose descent is unknown. I say nothing of the fact that such was the state of
antiquity, when men's eyes and minds were so habitually rude, that they were
excited by the appearance of every newcomer as if it were that of a god: much
more would this be the case with a king, and that the primeval one. I will
linger some time longer over the case of Saturn, because by fully discussing his
primordial history I shall beforehand furnish a compendious answer for all other
cases; and I do not wish to omit the more convincing testimony of your sacred
literature, the credit of which ought to be the greater in proportion to its
antiquity. Now earlier than all liters 142

ture was the Sibyl; that Sibyl, I mean, who was the true prophetess of truth,
from whom you borrow their title for the priests of your demons. She in senarian
verse expounds the descent of Saturn and his exploits in words to this effect:
"In the tenth generation of men, after the flood had overwhelmed the former
race, reigned Saturn, and Titan, and Japetus, the bravest of the sons of Tetra
and Coelus." Whatever credit, therefore, is attached to your older writers and
literature, and much more to those who were the simplest as belonging to that
age, it becomes sufficiently certain that Saturn and his family were human
beings. We have in our possession, then, a brief principle which amounts to a
prescriptive rule about their origin serving for all other cases, to prevent our
going wrong in individual instances. The particular character of a posterity is
shown by the original founders of the race--mortal beings (come) from mortals,
earthly ones from earthly; step after step comes in due relation--marriage,
conception, birth--country, settlements, kingdoms, all give the clearest proofs.
They, therefore who cannot deny the birth of men, must also admit their death;
they who allow their mortality must not suppose them to be gods.

CHAP. XIII.--THE GODS HUMAN AT FIRST. WHO HAD THE AUTHORITY TO MAKE THEM
DIVINE? JUPITER NOT ONLY HUMAN, BUT IMMORAL.

Manifest cases, indeed, like these have a force peculiarly their own. Men
like Varro and his fellow-dreamers admit into the ranks of the divinity those
whom they cannot assert to have been in their primitive condition anything but
men; (and this they do) by affirming that they became gods after their death.
Here, then, I take my stand. If your gods were elected to this dignity and
deity, just as you recruit the ranks of your senate, you cannot help conceding,
in your wisdom, that there must be some one supreme sovereign who has the power
of selecting, and is a kind of Caesar; and nobody is able to confer on others a
thing over which he has not absolute control. Besides, if they were able to make
gods of themselves after their death, pray tell me why they chose to be in an
inferior condition at first? Or, again, if there is no one who made them gods,
how can they be said to have been made such, if they could only have been made
by some one else? There is therefore no ground afforded you for denying that
there is a certain wholesale distributor of divinity. Let us accordingly examine
the reasons for despatching mortal beings to heaven. I suppose you will produce
a pair of them. Whoever, then, is the awarder (of the divine honours), exercises
his function, either that he may have some supports, or defences, or it may be
even ornaments to his own dignity; or from the pressing claims of the
meritorious, that he may reward all the deserving. No other cause is it
permitted us to conjecture. Now there is no one who, when bestowing a gift on
another, does not act with a view to his own interest or the other's. This
conduct, however, cannot be worthy of the Divine Being, inasmuch as His power is
so great that He can make gods outright; whilst His bringing man into such
request, on the pretence that he requires the aid and support of certain, even
dead persons, is a strange conceit, since He was able from the very first to
create for Himself immortal beings. He who has compared human things with divine
will require no further arguments on these points. And yet the latter opinion
ought to be discussed, that God conferred divine honours in consideration of
meritorious claims. Well, then, if the award was made on such grounds, if heaven
was opened to men of the primitive age because of their deserts, we must reflect
that after that time no one was worthy of such honour; except it be, that there
is now no longer such a place for any one to attain to. Let us grant that
anciently men may have deserved heaven by reason of their great merits. Then let
us consider whether there really was such merit. Let the man who alleges that it
did exist declare his own view of merit. Since the actions of men done in the
very infancy of time are a valid claim for their deification, you consistently
admitted to the honour the brother and sister who were stained with the sin of
incest--Ops and Saturn. Your Jupiter too, stolen in his infancy, was unworthy of
both the home and the nutriment accorded to human beings; and, as he deserved
for so bad a child, he had to live in Crete. Afterwards, when full-grown, he
dethrones his own father, who, whatever his parental character may have been,
was most prosperous in his reign, king as he was of the golden age. Under him, a
stranger to toil and want, 143

and without the importunity of any one the earth would bear all crops
spontaneously. But he hated a father who had been guilty of incest, and had once
mutilated his grandfather. And yet, behold, he himself marries his own sister;
so that I should suppose the old adage was made for him: Tooupatros--" Father's own child." There was "not a pin to choose" between
the father's piety and the son's. If the laws had been just even at that early
time, Jupiter ought to have been "sewed up in both sacks." After this
corroboration of his lust with incestuous gratification, why should he hesitate
to indulge himself lavishly in the lighter excesses of adultery and debauchery?
Ever since poetry sported thus with his character, in some such way as is usual
when a runaway slave is posted up in public, we have been in the habit of
gossiping without restraint of his tricks in our chat with passers-by; sometimes
sketching him out in the form of the very money which was the fee of his
debauchery--as when (he personated) a bull, or rather paid the money's worth of
one, and showered (gold. into the maiden's chamber, or rather forced his way in
with a bribe; sometimes (figuring him) in the very likenesses of the parts which
were acted--as the eagle which ravished (the beautiful youth), and the swan
which sang (the enchanting song). Well now, are not such fables as these made up
of the most disgusting intrigues and the worst of scandals? or would not the
morals and tempers of men be likely to become wanton from such examples? In what
manner demons, the offspring of evil angels who have been long engaged in their
mission, have laboured to turn men aside from the faith to unbelief and to such
fables, we must not in this place speak of to any extent. As indeed the general
body (of your gods), which took their cue from their kings, and princes, and
instructors, was not of the self-same nature, it was in some other way" that
similarity of character was exacted by their authority. But how much the worst
of them was he who (ought to have been, but) was not, the best of them? By a
title peculiar to him, you are indeed in the habit of calling Jupiter "the
Best,"" whilst in Virgil he is "AEquus Jupiter." All therefore were like
him--incestuous towards their own kith and kin, unchaste to strangers, impious,
unjust! Now he whom mythic story left untainted with no conspicuous infamy, was
not worthy to be made a god.

CHAP. XIV.--GODS, THOSE WHICH WERE CONFESSEDLY ELEVATED TO THE DIVINE

CONDITION, WHAT PRE-EMINENT RIGHT HAD THEY TO SUCH HONOUR? HERCULES AN

INFERIOR CHARACTER.

But since they will have it that those who have been admitted from the human
state to the honours of deification should be kept separate from others, and
that the distinction which Dionysius the Stoic drew should be made between the
native and the factitious gods, I will add a few words concerning this last
class also. I will take Hercules himself for raising the gist of a reply (to the
question) whether he deserved heaven and divine honours? For, as men choose to
have it, these honours are awarded to him for his merits. If it was for his
valour in destroying wild beasts with intrepidity, what was there in that so
very memorable? Do not criminals condemned to the games, though they are even
consigned to the contest of the vile arena, despatch several of these animals at
one time, and that with more earnest zeal? If it was for his world-wide travels,
how often has the same thing been accomplished by the rich at their pleasant
leisure, or by philosophers in their slave-like poverty? Is it forgotten that
the cynic Asclepiades on a single sorry cow, riding on her back, and sometimes
nourished at her udder, surveyed the whole world with a personal inspection?
Even if Hercules visited the infernal regions, who does not know that the way to
Hades is open to all? If you have deified him on account of his much carnage and
many battles, a much greater number of victories was gained by the 144

illustrious Pompey, the conqueror of the pirates who had not spared Ostia
itself in their ravages; and (as to carnage), how many thousands, let me ask,
were cooped up in one corner of the citadel of Carthage, and slain by Scipio?
Wherefore Scipio has a better claim to be considered a fit candidate for
deification than Hercules. You must be still more careful to add to the claims
of (our) Hercules his debaucheries with concubines and wives, and the swathes of
Omphale, and his base desertion of the Argonauts because he had lost his
beautiful boy. To this mark of baseness add for his glorification likewise his
attacks of madness, adore the arrows which slew his sons and wife. This was the
man who, after deeming himself worthy of a funeral pile in the anguish of his
remorse for his parricides, deserved rather to die the unhonoured death which
awaited him, arrayed in the poisoned robe which his wife sent him on account of
his lascivious attachment (to another). You, however, raised him from the pyre
to the sky, with the same facility with which (you have distinguished in like
manner) another hero also, who was destroyed by the violence of a fire from the
gods. He having devised some few experiments, was said to have restored the dead
to life by his cures. He was the son of Apollo, half human, although the
grandson of Jupiter, and great-grandson of Saturn (or rather of spurious origin,
because his parentage was uncertain, as Socrates of Argon has related; he was
exposed also, and found in a worse tutelage than even Jove's, suckled even at
the dugs of a dog); nobody can deny that he deserved the end which befell him
when he perished by a stroke of lightning. In this transaction, however, your
most excellent Jupiter is once more found in the wrong--impious to his grandson,
envious of his artistic skill. Pindar, indeed, has not concealed his true
desert; according to him, he was punished for his avarice and love of gain,
influenced by which he would bring the living to their death, rather than the
dead to life, by the perverted use of his medical art which he put up for sale.
It is said that his mother was killed by the same stroke, and it was only right
that she, who had bestowed so dangerous a beast on the world, should escape to
heaven by the same ladder. And yet the Athenians will not be at a loss how to
sacrifice to gods of such a fashion, for they pay divine honours to Aesculapius
and his mother amongst their dead (worthies). As if, too, they had not ready to
hand their own Theseus to worship, so highly deserving a god's distinction!
Well, why not? Did he not on a foreign shore abandon the preserver of his life,
with the same indifference, nay heartlessness, with which he became the cause of
his father's death?

It would be tedious to take a survey of all those, too, whom you have buried
amongst the constellations, and audaciously minister to as gods. I suppose your
Castors, and Perseus, and Erigona, have just the same claims for the honours of
the sky as Jupiter's own big boy had. But why should we wonder? You have
transferred to heaven even dogs, and scorpions, and crabs. I postpone all
remarks concerning those whom you worship in your oracles. That this worship
exists, is attested by him who pronounces the oracle.

Why; you will have your gods to be spectators even of sadness, as is Viduus,
who makes a widow of the soul, by parting it from the body, and whom you have
condemned, by not permitting him to be enclosed within your city-walls; there is
Caeculus also, to deprive the eyes of their perception; and Orbana, to bereave
seed of its vital power; moreover, there is the goddess of death herself. To
pass hastily by all others, you account as gods the sites of places or of the
city; such are Father Janus (there being, moreover, the archer-goddess Jana),
and Septimontius of the seven hills.

Men sacrifice to the same Genii, whilst 145

they have altars or temples in the same places; but to others besides, when
they dwell in a strange place, or live in rented houses. I say nothing about
Ascensus, who gets his name for his climbing propensity, and Clivicola, from her
sloping (haunts); I pass silently by the deities called Forculus from doors, and
Cardea from hinges, and Limentinus the god of thresholds, and whatever others
are worshipped by your neighbours as tutelar deities of their street doors.
There is nothing strange in this, since men have their respective gods in their
brothels, their kitchens, and even in their prison. Heaven, therefore, is
crowded with innumerable gods of its own, both these and others belonging to the
Romans, which have distributed amongst them the functions of one's whole life,
in such a way that there is no want of the others gods. Although, it is true,
the gods which we have enumerated are reckoned as Roman peculiarly, and as not
easily recognised abroad; yet how do all those functions and circumstances, over
which men have willed their gods to preside, come about, in every part of the
human race, and in every nation, where their guarantees are not only without an
official recognition, but even any recognition at all?

CHAP. XVI.--INVENTORS OF USEFUL ARTS UNWORTHY OF DEIFICATION. THEY
WOULD

BE THE FIRST TO ACKNOWLEDGE A CREATOR. THE ARTS CHANGEABLE FROM TIME TO
TIME, AND SOME BECOME OBSOLETE.

Well, but certain men have discovered fruits and sundry necessaries of life,
(and hence are worthy of deification). Now let me ask, when you call these
persons "discoverers," do you not confess that what they discovered was already
in existence? Why then do you not prefer to honour the Author, from whom the
gifts really come, instead of converting the Author into mere discoverers?
Previously he who made the discover, the inventor himself no doubt expressed his
gratitude to the Author; no doubt, too, he felt that He was God, to whom really
belonged the religious service, as the Creator (of the gift), by whom also both
he who discovered and that which was discovered were alike created. The green
fig of Africa nobody at Rome had heard of when Cato introduced it to the Senate,
in order that he might show how near was that province of the enemy whose
subjugation he was constantly urging. The cherry was first made common in Italy
by Cn. Pompey, who imported it from Pontus. I might possibly have thought the
earliest introducers of apples amongst the Romans deserving of the public honour
of deification. This, however, would be as foolish a ground for making gods as
even the invention of the useful arts. And yet if the skilful men of our own
time be compared with these, how much more suitable would deification be to the
later generation than to the former! For, tell me, have not all the extant
inventions superseded antiquity, whilst daily experience goes on adding to the
new stock? Those, therefore, whom you regard as divine because of their arts,
you are really injuring by your very arts, and challenging (their divinity) by
means of rival attainments, which cannot be surpassed.

CHAP. XVII.--CONCLUSION, THE ROMANS OWE NOT THEIR IMPERIAL POWER TO THEIR
GODS. THE GREAT GOD ALONE DISPENSESKINGDOMS, HE IS THE GOD OF THE
CHRISTIANS.

In conclusion, without denying all those whom antiquity willed and posterity
has believed to be gods, to be the guardians of your religion, there yet remains
for our consideration that very large assumption of the Roman superstitions
which we have to meet in opposition to you, O heathen, viz. that the Romans have
become the lords and masters of the whole world, because by their religious
offices they have merited this dominion to such an extent that they are within a
very little of excelling even their own gods in power. One cannot wonder that
Sterculus, and Mutunus, and Larentina, have severally advanced this empire to
its height! The Roman people has been by its gods alone ordained to such
dominion. For I could not imagine that any foreign gods would have preferred
doing more for a strange nation than for their own people, and so by such
conduct become the deserters and neglecters, nay, the betrayers of the native
land wherein they were born and bred, and ennobled and buried. Thus not even
Jupiter 146

could suffer his own Crete to be subdued by the Roman fasces, forgetting that
cave of Ida, and the brazen cymbals of the Corybantes, and the most pleasant
odour of the goat which nursed him on that dear spot. Would he not have made
that tomb of his superior to the whole Capitol, so that that land should most
widely rule which covered the ashes of Jupiter? Would Juno, too, be willing that
the Punic city, for the love of which she even neglected Samos, should be
destroyed, and that, too, by the fires of the sons of AEneas? Although I am well
aware that "Hic illius arma, Hic currus fuit, hoc regnum des gentibus ease, Si
qua fata sinant, jam tunc tenditque fovetque."

Here were her arms, her chariot here, Here goddess-like, to fix one day The
seat of universal sway, Might fate be wrung to yield assent, E'en then her
schemes, her cares were bent."

Still the unhappy (queen of gods) had no power against the fates! And yet the
Romans did not accord as much honour to the fates, although they gave them
Carthage, as they did to Larentina. But surely those gods of yours have not the
power of conferring empire. For when Jupiter reigned in Crete, and Saturn in
Italy, and Isis in Egypt, it was even as men that they reigned, to whom also
were assigned many to assist them. Thus he who serves also makes masters, and
the bond-slave of Admetus aggrandizes with empire the citizens of Rome, although
he destroyed his own liberal votary Croesus by deceiving him with ambiguous
oracles. Being a god, why was he afraid boldly to foretell to him the truth that
he must lose his kingdom. Surely those who were aggrandized with the power of
wielding empire might always have been able to keep an eye, as it were, on their
own cities. If they were strong enough to confer empire on the Romans, why did
not Minerva defend Athens from Xerxes? Or why did not Apollo rescue Delphi out
of the hand of Pyrrhus? They who lost their own cities preserve the city of
Rome, since (forsooth) the religiousness of Rome has merited the protection! But
is it not rather the fact that this excessive devotion has been devised since
the empire has attained its glory by the increase of its power? No doubt sacred
rites were introduced by Numa, but then your proceedings were not marred by a
religion of idols and temples. Piety was simple, and worship humble; altars were
artlessly reared, and the vessels (thereof) plain, and the incense from them
scant, and the god himself nowhere. Men therefore were not religious before they
achieved greatness, (nor great) because they were religious. But how can the
Romans possibly seem to have acquired their empire by an excessive religiousness
and very profound respect for the gods, when that empire was rather increased
after the gods had been slighted? Now, if I am not mistaken, every kingdom or
empire is acquired and enlarged by wars, whilst they and their gods also are
injured by conquerors. For the same ruin affects both city-walls and temples;
similar is the carnage both of civilians and of priests; identical the plunder
of profane things and of sacred. To the Romans belong as many sacrileges as
trophies; and then as many triumphs over gods as over nations. Still remaining
are their captive idols amongst them; and certainly, if they can only see their
conquerors, they do not give them their love. Since, however, they have no
perception, they are injured with impunity; and since they are injured with
impunity, they are worshipped to no purpose. The nation, therefore, which has
grown to its powerful height by victory after victory, cannot seem to have
developed owing to the merits of its religion--whether they have injured the
religion by augmenting their power, or augmented their power by injuring the
religion. All nations have possessed empire, each in its proper time, as the
Assyrians, the Medes, the Persians, the Egyptians; empire is even now also in
the possession of some, and yet they that have lost their power used not to
behave without attention to religious services and the worship of the gods, even
after these had become unpropitious to them, until at last almost universal
dominion has accrued to the Romans. It is the fortune of the times that has thus
constantly shaken kingdoms with revolution. Inquire who has ordained these
changes in the times. It is the same (great Being) who dispenses kingdoms, and
has now put the supremacy of them into the hands of the Romans, very much as if
the tribute of many nations were after its exaction amassed in one (vast)
coffer. What He has determined concerning it, they know who are the nearest to
Him.